Short and carefully crafted poems remember old friends, comment on old age and explore the delights of the New England sea coast in this ninth volume of verse from the long-respected poet-critic Hoffman, his first since the new-and-selected Hang-Gliding
(1989). Hoffman's reasonable tones help him imagine, sweetly or ironically, his own and others' later years, often alongside archeological symbols and subjects; these poems' sounds recall (sometimes too closely) Seamus Heaney's. Hoffman becomes more inspired and energetic when he evokes the Atlantic shoreline, in lines reminiscent instead of the late A.R. Ammons. "A Wall of Stone" follows "the way/ holding sea-winds at bay the granite/ shields and encloses phlox/ and roses." One slim, intelligent lyric follows the workings of a weathervane; another remembers the dying "as the night/ comes, bringing its own/ going in its coming/ again, and again." Hoffman's lesser works (like the Keats nod "On First Looking into Lattimore's Homer") can grow sententious, or fail to rise above their occasions. The same wit and lightness that fail in such poems, however, make him a remarkable craftsman of epigrams and a reliable maker of lighter verse: the four-line "Devotion" must be the funniest thing ever written about a ship's prow, while the sonnet "A Resurrection" moves smartly from the sublimity of Lazarus to the consolation of coffee and orange juice. Though never blindingly original, Hoffman has made a long and worthy career of trustworthy, memorable verse: this compact new volume adds to his well-known strengths. (Apr.)
Forecast:Hoffman, who will be 80 next year, was chosen by W.H. Auden as a Yale Younger Poet in 1954, was U.S. Poet Laureate (when the job was called Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress) and is emeritus professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. Look for some events in academia next year celebrating his octogenarian status, from which this book will pick up some momentum.
