Beyond Silence: Selected Shorter Poems, 1948-2003

by Daniel Hoffman

Overview

Accepting an award for poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Daniel Hoffman wrote, "Amid private sufferings and outrage at the brutalities of public life, it is gaiety that sustains us, and love, and the imagination's power to create from both deprivation and delight." This collection embodies those emotions and that imaginative power.

From the poems in his first book, chosen by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, to his most recent volume nearly fifty years later, Hoffman's verse has exulted in the resources of language, as sensuous in sound as in response to the natural world. Beyond Silence, published on Hoffman's eightieth birthday, presents his shorter poems culled from eight previous collections, plus several new poems.

The strength and shapeliness of Hoffman's poems, intrinsic with their meanings, have been constant through his long career. Here, rather than in chronological order, they appear thematically and invite the reader to partake of the pleasures that characterize this distinguished poet's verse: "clarity, grace where desired, accuracy of visual detail and dialogue, and a formal mastery so deft that playfulness comes easily" (Fred Chappell).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807128619
Publisher:	Louisiana State University Press
Publication date:	01/01/2003
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Alternate bioDaniel Hoffman served as Consultant in Poetry of the Library of Congress, the appointment now called Poet Laureate of the United States, in 1973-74, and as Poet in Residence of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, l988-99, administering the American Poets' Corner. His eight books of shorter poems — including the most recent, Darkening Water — and his earlier selected poetry collection, Hang-Gliding from Helicon, are augmented by two book-length poems: Brotherly Love, a meditation of William Penn's treaty with the Indians and a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and his novel in verse, Middens of the Tribe. He is the author of eight books of nonfiction, including Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe — also a finalist for the National Book Award — and Zone of the Interior: A Memoir, 1942-1947. Now Felix E. Schelling Professor of English Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, he lives with his wife in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and Harborside, Maine.

Daniel Hoffman (1923—2013) published fourteen books of poetry including Hang-Gliding from Helicon, The Whole Nine Yards, and Next to Last Words. His early book-length poem Brotherly Love became a finalist for the National Book Award, and in 1973—74 he served as Consultant in Poetry of the Library of Congress, the appointment now called Poet Laureate of the United States.

Editorial Reviews

Hoffman presents his favorites among his short poems thematically in eight sections but doesn't say what any section's theme is. He isn't being coy, just granting that readers are smart enough to figure themes out themselves. The first section weighs the twentieth century, especially in the relatively long, virtuosically sustained "The City of Satisfaction," a parable a la Hawthorne's "The Celestial Railroad" about striving for an ideologically promised perfect society. The second section is full of myths and memories of love; the third, of sins, errors, and paths not taken; the fourth, of journeys of personal identity (including one whose Whitman-like aspirations are immediately quashed: "O Personages who move / Among me, why don't you / Guys come on call?"). The fifth salutes and queries the satisfactions of home, community, and the natural world, not forgetting neighbors and memorable characters. The sixth responds to those old, philosophical puzzlers: Why are we here? and Where are we going? In the seventh, Hoffman relishes beloved poets and jazz musicians ("High Society" ranks with Hayden Carruth's best jazz poems). The poems in the last section constitute a coda of gratitude for life. Erudite and neighborly, formally adroit even in the occasional free-verse poem, Hoffman is an indispensable American poet.

Booklist - Ray Olson

What's most striking about Beyond Silence, however, is not Hoffman's development but his consistency. Few poets could arrange 55 years' worth of work thematically, rather than chronologically -- presenting poems composed during the Truman and Clinton administrations on facing pages -- with no sense of discontinuity. Decade after decade, Hoffman has returned to the same Maine beachscapes and Pennsylvania cityscapes, framed and reframed the same ethical and metaphysical questions and written love poems to the same woman. — Eric McHenry

The New York Times

The former poet laureate (when the job was called "Consultant in Poetry"), Daniel Hoffman was also a Yale Younger Poet and is now professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania. Beyond Silence: Selected Shorter Poems 1948-2003 excludes his longer and two book-length poems, and arranges these lyrics thematically, with the hope "that they will each give pleasure." Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly