The Narrow Circle

by Nathan Hoks

Selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series by Dean Young John Ashbery called  Reveilles , Nathan Hoks’s debut book, a “dazzling” collection and Hoks a poet whose “fine gradations of observation turn the reader into a barometer of strong subtleties like those of the weather, that can be minute even as they affect us powerfully.” The poems in Hoks’s new book,  The Narrow Circle , perform a similar magic.  In associative lyrics and fabulist prose, Hoks explores inner and outer experiences. The poems frequently focus on the body as a membrane where everything becomes inside-out—where the “face disperses with angels of teeth and loam,” where “sky comes out of the mouth,” where a giant green worm “burrows a hole in the head,” and where the heart is a vestibule that cannot be closed. Suites of pictures within the text further delineate this inward-outward pull, offering visualizations of interior voices and sketches of exterior shadows.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2013

Reviews

[Alan]

I can’t say that this is a favourite, nor that I even found many poems that I could mark down and keep to come back to. All I can say about this collection is that, when read aloud, it began to have what I think gets close to the intended effect. I started to sense as if I understood, in a way, what it was to have a microwave be a liver, and my thoughts be contained in this sunflower seed. Complete breakdown between the interior and the exterior. For that experience alone, well done.

[Cass · Rating 1 out of 5]

No. Just no. I will admit that I am not a huge fan of contemporary poetry but this book simply does not work. The tone is contemplative but in a way that made me reject Hoks and think his strife was contrived at times.

[Ashley Slater · Rating 1 out of 5]

Apart from a couple of well done lines, I did not think that it was very good. Just becuase you have a degree does not mean you should be a published poet. His line breaks were wonky and his observations primarily shallow. Here's hoping he's. a better professor than writer.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every page flabbergasted in the best possible way. A tugboat chugging through dreamland. A journey I need to take again.

[Curious Stallion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deeply philosophical. Ethereal, evocative style of writing!

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was alright. There are some interesting aspects to these poems but overall I found them a little obnoxious. Hoks' is very clever, and he seems to know it and this book is certainly not bad, it just didn't take me anywhere.