Selected Poems

by Michael Hofmann

With five critically acclaimed collections— Nights in the Iron Hotel (1983), Acrimony (1986), K.S. in New and Selected Poems (1990), Corona, Corona (1993), and Approximately Nowhere (1999)—Michael Hofmann has established himself as one of the truly original poetic voices of our time. His poetry, both public and personal, expansive and intimate, looks in three directions—toward the Germany of his birth and toward his adopted homelands, England and America—and his perspective on all three is surprising, alarmed, and alarming. Influenced by Robert Lowell and John Berryman (both of whom he has edited), Hofmann nevertheless cannot be pigeonholed in any given style or movement. Hofmann may be better known, especially in America, for his acclaimed translations than for his own poetry, but this volume promises to introduce a broad new readership to a keenly intelligent, formally rigorous, emotionally unsparing poetry that feels entirely fresh.

Genres: Poetry

192 pages, Hardcover

Published April 27, 2009

About the author

Michael Hofmann is a German-born, British-educated poet and translator. He is the author of two books of essays and five books of poems, most recently One Lark, One Horse. Among his translations are plays by Bertolt Brecht and Patrick Süskind; the selected poems of Durs Grünbein and Gottfried Benn; and novels and stories by, among others, Franz Kafka; Peter Stamm; his father, Gert Hofmann; and fourteen books by Joseph Roth. He has translated several books for NYRB Classics, including Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, Jakob Wassermann’s My Marriage, and Gert Ledig’s Stalin Front, Kurt Tucholsky’s Castle Gripsholm, and edited The Voyage That Never Ends, an anthology of writing by Malcolm Lowry. He teaches in the English Department at the University of Florida.

He is the son of German novelist Gert Hofmann (1931-1993).

Reviews

[João Reis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my last review (review, not rating) on Goodreads, and so I'd like to thank Michael Hofmann for offering me this non-cheesy poetry book.
Really good stuff.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took Michael Hofmann's course on contemporary British and Irish poetry in the fall of 2005, when I was a sophomore at Barnard and he was a visiting professor. There were about twelve of us in the class, and I'm not really in touch with any of my classmates, or with Michael, but I look back on the class as one of my favorites from my years in college. Michael would constantly tell us how bright he thought we all were during our discussions, but I think he just always asked the best questions.

I had never read anything of Michael's, except one poem of his, "Ancient Evenings," which was included in an anthology we each had to purchase for the class, so I was happy to find this new collection while browsing at Greenlight Bookstore recently. While reading Michael's work, two favorite poets came to mind: Phillip Larkin and Robert Lowell. Like Larkin, Michael's verse is often bitingly honest, and like Lowell, Michael is a beautiful lyric poet who often writes about family and his (multiple) homelands. My favorites in the collection include "Boys' Own," "Nighthawks," and the already familiar "Ancient Evenings." I'm very happy to have Michael's "Selected Poems" as part of my little poetry library.

[jude! · Rating 4 out of 5]

WOW!! Hofmann has a real skill at playing with form and diction that is showcased so well in this selection of poems. truly feels like i got to see the expanse of his work over the various presentates collections. some favs were “Lord B. and Others”, “Last Walk”, and “Rimbaud on the Hudson” but Hofmann’s work brought out some real fascinating conversations in my class!!

[Gavin Lightfoot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite personal poetry about the places and environments he has lived in and observational descriptions of how his father lived.

[Diann Blakely]

While embracing Irishmen such as Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon, the latter now the poetry editor of the NEW YORKER, American readers of poetry--i.e., poets--remain absurdly snobbish about the genre as it emanates from England. Michael Hofmann, largely underground in recent years while laboring as the translator of the East German poet Durs Grunbein, Joseph Roth, Kafka, and his late father, the novelist Gert Hofmann; as well as editor of Malcolm Lowry’s THE VOYAGE THAT NEVER ENDS: FICTIONS, POEMS, FRAGMENTS, ESSAYS, and, with James Lasdun, AFTER OVID: NEW METAMORPHOSES, which includes translations of key passages by Ted Hughes, Heaney, Jorie Graham, J. D. McClatchy, and the editors themselves, Hofmann has re-emerged as arguably the best practitioner of his original craft writing from England today. Perhaps his work’s intrigue and excellence owe their origins to Hofmann’s being particularly well-versed (so to speak) in American poetry as well as his half-time tenure of the University of Florida. His melding of the tropical landscape there and the crucial violence that defines our country, as well its popular culture, has possibly never been surpassed by any contemporaries, whatever their national origin, with a poem like the terrifying “Freebird.” The title, taken from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, nearly mocks its subject, one of the serial killers to which the state he has half-adopted as home seems adept (remember Ted Bundy? Aileen Wournos?) at producing. “Six girls round the pool in Stranglers’ weather /Tanning....? Were Hofmann a pure product of America, he might have gone crazy, or at least retreated to writing solely about his workshop students (which is perhaps the same thing) by now, but for the moment, his thorough assimilation of Lowell, filtered through an Anglo-European aesthetic, has produced some of the best work around, as richly evidenced by this superbly honed collection.

(originally published in ANTIOCH REVIEW)

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had not read Hofmann's work before picking up this book. To witness Hofmann's poetic voice evolve the span of decades in the space of a couple hundred pages was absolutely terrifying and great and totally unnatural. I loved it.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm terribly biased, but I think he's one of our (their?) best.

[D. Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

After taking a couple of his courses I find his poetry penetrating, richly colored in distinctive mind bending moods.