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Sightseer
From the gilded dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral in Russia to the pink arms of a starfish in Provincetown, Cynthia Marie Hoffman's encompassing and sharp eye reinvents the travel poem. Always the outsider, the tourist ultimately discovers an intimate and life-affirming connection to the objects and beings she encounters, and illuminates a self-portrait among portraits of place.
- GenresPoetry
78 pages, Hardcover
First published April 13, 2011
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26 people want to read
About the author
Cynthia Marie Hoffman
5 books22 followersCynthia Marie Hoffman is the author of four collections of poetry: Exploding Head (Feb 2024), Call Me When You Want to Talk about the Tombstones, Paper Doll Fetus, and Sightseer, all from Persea Books. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Wisconsin Arts Board. Essays have appeared in TIME, The Sun, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. Poems have appeared in Electric Literature, The Believer, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. Cynthia lives in Madison, WI. Learn more at www.cynthiamariehoffman.com.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 3, 2012
Sightseer (Persea Books, 2011, 71 pp., $15.00) is Cynthia Marie Hoffman’s debut full-length poetry collection. Hoffman guides readers through some of Europe’s most famous landmarks. Her eye is sharp, and her focus surprises, illuminates. She beautifully gives voice to these sites and the dead inhabiting their ruins. She illustrates an enduring link with the people and buildings she encounters.
Sightseer crisscrosses Russia, Poland, Germany, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Britain, Ireland and America. Her poems appear, at first, to be in no geographic order. But this non-order is central to the speaker’s experience. In her brilliant epiphany “Dear Pigeons, Poland,” she admits:
That morning in Krakow, lonely and cold, you reminded me
that I was at home, that there is no such thing as Poland,
it is only the name someone gave to the shape the land makes
when it is drawn on a map . . . (pp. 52)
Hoffman’s book addresses much more than a world without boundaries. It illustrates how the living interact with sites they surround. Her focus renders itself beautifully in “In Pushkin Park, an Old Woman:”
. . . Tourists come
with their cameras to Pushkin’s statue, to pose as he poses, stately,
right palm toward the sky. Like an impatient child,
the wind tugs at their coats. The old woman [drinks milk]. (pp. 23)
Nine poems begin with “Dear,” as though opening correspondence, mainly to landmarks; none addresses living people. The speaker equates sites to living beings, as evidenced in “Dear Herzen Inn,:”
Don’t laugh at me. From my window
looking out upon the courtyard, I can see
an abandoned rusted bathtub
and I want to lie down in it. (pp. 22)
These sites achieve superhuman feats of longevity. “You were only an infant / at the age of 247 years,” (pp. 38) she exclaims in “The Athassel Priory.” Her connection to these landmarks is personal, intimate. She refers to structures, the dead or nearby animals as “you” in 15 poems. This technique works stunningly, for example, in “Dear Alexander Nevsky,:”
Do you know what things they’ve said
about you since you died at Gorodets? (pp. 7)
The speaker connects strongly with the dead. Cemeteries dominate many poems. In “The Ruins of Hoare Abbey,” she states:
Tell me your story and I will retell it.
The tombstones stare from blank faces. (pp. 56)
And later, in “Tomb,” she confesses:
What sorry company I was, offering no warmth from my hurried hand.
Nor could we exchange, for I was frightened and my greed of a different kind,
the affection a thief shares with the dead, palm passing over chest
long since bared of jewels. This photograph was all I wanted to take. (pp. 13)
Despite the ruins, the speaker revels in factual accuracy, describing “400 kilograms of real gold, 4 bell towers, 40 tons of marble, 40,000 workers” (pp. 12) and “the clapper of a giant bell / weighing six hundred and sixty pounds.” (pp. 52) These details gird an underlying sense of tenderness for her subjects.
The pull of her travels is extremely strong, underscoring connections she made across Europe. In “Dear Bed, Apartment C,” she begs:
. . . Save me, O my bed.
Muster the strength of your 704 coil springs, pop them
right through your padded top quilt, shove me out the apartment
door, back to Russia . . . (pp. 65)
In “The Second Largest Wooden Cupola in Europe Burns,” she explains:
Now that the Troitsky Cathedral burns, I sit
at my desk . . .
. . . you will find my house
by the flickering blaze that creeps among
the grass. (pp. 67)
Her connections are physical, palpable.
Hoffman’s ability to conjure lovely images is enough in itself to read Sightseer. Individually, the pieces gleam like “a brilliant whorl of petals set to spinning.” (pp. 15) Read together, however, these poems construct a book of immense historic and personal power, as solid and remarkable as the landmarks she describes. She repeatedly demonstrates the universal links between the living, the dead and the landscapes they inhabit. Hoffman perfectly illustrates this beautiful interconnectedness again and again, “this magnificent / kaleidoscope against which the dazzling eye of God is pressed.” (pp. 34)
Originally appeared in Chiron Review, # 95, Summer 2011
Sightseer crisscrosses Russia, Poland, Germany, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Britain, Ireland and America. Her poems appear, at first, to be in no geographic order. But this non-order is central to the speaker’s experience. In her brilliant epiphany “Dear Pigeons, Poland,” she admits:
That morning in Krakow, lonely and cold, you reminded me
that I was at home, that there is no such thing as Poland,
it is only the name someone gave to the shape the land makes
when it is drawn on a map . . . (pp. 52)
Hoffman’s book addresses much more than a world without boundaries. It illustrates how the living interact with sites they surround. Her focus renders itself beautifully in “In Pushkin Park, an Old Woman:”
. . . Tourists come
with their cameras to Pushkin’s statue, to pose as he poses, stately,
right palm toward the sky. Like an impatient child,
the wind tugs at their coats. The old woman [drinks milk]. (pp. 23)
Nine poems begin with “Dear,” as though opening correspondence, mainly to landmarks; none addresses living people. The speaker equates sites to living beings, as evidenced in “Dear Herzen Inn,:”
Don’t laugh at me. From my window
looking out upon the courtyard, I can see
an abandoned rusted bathtub
and I want to lie down in it. (pp. 22)
These sites achieve superhuman feats of longevity. “You were only an infant / at the age of 247 years,” (pp. 38) she exclaims in “The Athassel Priory.” Her connection to these landmarks is personal, intimate. She refers to structures, the dead or nearby animals as “you” in 15 poems. This technique works stunningly, for example, in “Dear Alexander Nevsky,:”
Do you know what things they’ve said
about you since you died at Gorodets? (pp. 7)
The speaker connects strongly with the dead. Cemeteries dominate many poems. In “The Ruins of Hoare Abbey,” she states:
Tell me your story and I will retell it.
The tombstones stare from blank faces. (pp. 56)
And later, in “Tomb,” she confesses:
What sorry company I was, offering no warmth from my hurried hand.
Nor could we exchange, for I was frightened and my greed of a different kind,
the affection a thief shares with the dead, palm passing over chest
long since bared of jewels. This photograph was all I wanted to take. (pp. 13)
Despite the ruins, the speaker revels in factual accuracy, describing “400 kilograms of real gold, 4 bell towers, 40 tons of marble, 40,000 workers” (pp. 12) and “the clapper of a giant bell / weighing six hundred and sixty pounds.” (pp. 52) These details gird an underlying sense of tenderness for her subjects.
The pull of her travels is extremely strong, underscoring connections she made across Europe. In “Dear Bed, Apartment C,” she begs:
. . . Save me, O my bed.
Muster the strength of your 704 coil springs, pop them
right through your padded top quilt, shove me out the apartment
door, back to Russia . . . (pp. 65)
In “The Second Largest Wooden Cupola in Europe Burns,” she explains:
Now that the Troitsky Cathedral burns, I sit
at my desk . . .
. . . you will find my house
by the flickering blaze that creeps among
the grass. (pp. 67)
Her connections are physical, palpable.
Hoffman’s ability to conjure lovely images is enough in itself to read Sightseer. Individually, the pieces gleam like “a brilliant whorl of petals set to spinning.” (pp. 15) Read together, however, these poems construct a book of immense historic and personal power, as solid and remarkable as the landmarks she describes. She repeatedly demonstrates the universal links between the living, the dead and the landscapes they inhabit. Hoffman perfectly illustrates this beautiful interconnectedness again and again, “this magnificent / kaleidoscope against which the dazzling eye of God is pressed.” (pp. 34)
Originally appeared in Chiron Review, # 95, Summer 2011
December 27, 2014
Travel writing for the way we find the mythic in the my(self). You get to see the world interpreted by a traveler who is smart, senses the greater meaning that can be found in a moment and who constructs a great poem! The book also a great cover.
Here's an excerpt that says it all...
The woman who works in the cemetery in her blue smock
bends to pick a scrap of paper from the earth
and drop it in the barrel as a god would drop
a bird into a sputtering volcano.
Here's an excerpt that says it all...
The woman who works in the cemetery in her blue smock
bends to pick a scrap of paper from the earth
and drop it in the barrel as a god would drop
a bird into a sputtering volcano.
April 6, 2013
Some of the poems in this debut are amazing, others are well-written, but pale in comparison. However, no one puts together a book of gems, so all-in-all it was an incredible book. And a brilliant concept altogether in one package. "Prayers for a Hearse" could have done without the last four lines, they seemed superfluous and didn't cohere with the rest of the poem, especially since it would end so well with the words "slowly scintillating." I'm thoroughly impressed and look forward to reading more of Ms. Hoffman's poems.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews