Tony Hoagland - What Narcissism Means To Me

Tony Hoagland's poems are political in all the correct ways. Provocative and witty, visceral and high-minded, they name the elephant in the room with such dialectic precision the very room seems to disappear. Publishers Weekly called him "one of the smarter, and funnier, poets of his generation." His poems are like songs with an irresistible, driving thematic rhythm over which one or more assertions syncopate their way towards a thrilling truth.

Winner of the James Laughlin Prize and a finalist for the National Book Critics Award, he has written 5 books of poetry and 2 collections of essays. His poems cover the changing of America, what it means to be a man, consumer culture, race, and the search for the sacred. In his poem, "At the Galleria Shopping Mall," he concludes,

Get over it, they said
at the school of Broken Hearts
but I couldn't and I didn't and I don't
believe in the clean break;
I believe in the compound fracture
served with a sauce of dirty regret,
I believe in saying it all
and taking it all back

Hoagland says it all and his words are demanding, beautiful and memorable. As Dwight Garner said in The New York Times, "few poets deliver more pure pleasure."

Style Number: 696051

Price: $14.00

Out of Stock