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Second Empire
"The delicate arc of these poems intimates—rather than tells—a love celebration, fear of loss, storm, abandonment, an opening forth. Richie Hofmann disciplines his natural elegance into the sterner recognitions that 'I am a little white omnivore,' the speaker of Second Empire discovers. Mastering directness and indirection, Hofmann's poems break through their own beauty."—Rosanna Warren This debut's spare, delicate poems explore ways we experience the afterlife of beauty while ornately examining lust, loss, and identity. Drawing upon traditions of amorous sonnets, these love-elegies desire an artistic and sexual connection to others—other times, other places—in order to understand aesthetic pleasures the speaker craves. Distant and formal, the poems feel both ancient and contemporary. Antique Book The sky was crazed with swallows.
We walked in the frozen grass
of your new city, I was gauzed with sleep. Trees shook down their gaudy nests.
The ceramic pots were caparisoned with snow.
I was jealous of the river, how the light broke it, of the skein
of windows where we saw ourselves.
Where we walked, the ice cracked like an antique book, opening
and closing. The leaves
beneath it were the marbled pages. Richie Hofmann is the winner of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New Yorker , Poetry , the Kenyon Review , and Ploughshares . A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University MFA program, he is currently a Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry at Emory University.
We walked in the frozen grass
of your new city, I was gauzed with sleep. Trees shook down their gaudy nests.
The ceramic pots were caparisoned with snow.
I was jealous of the river, how the light broke it, of the skein
of windows where we saw ourselves.
Where we walked, the ice cracked like an antique book, opening
and closing. The leaves
beneath it were the marbled pages. Richie Hofmann is the winner of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the New Yorker , Poetry , the Kenyon Review , and Ploughshares . A graduate of the Johns Hopkins University MFA program, he is currently a Creative Writing Fellow in Poetry at Emory University.
85 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 12, 2015
3 people are currently reading
227 people want to read
About the author
Richie Hofmann
7 books60 followersRichie Hofmann’s new book of poems, A Hundred Lovers, is out now from Knopf. He is the author of Second Empire (2015), and his poetry appears recently in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The Yale Review. He teaches at Stanford University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
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April 26, 2016I read a lot of poetry (yes, we exist) and I was drawn to this book by its striking cover. I had not heard of Mr Hofmann before but was intrigued. He is a very good poet, but I do have some issues with his poetry….
I accidentally ended up reading this book almost three times – by that I mean, I read about two-thirds of it, and got distracted by life, and when I went back to read it, I wanted to read it through, as I felt it befitted that.
Hofmann has a very clean, very precise air to his poetry, which is something that more poets could do with observing – there is not a word wasted. He is a very pastoral poet, enchanted with myth and history.
I feel he is best when he is emotionally involved with the poem, and if there is a problem with this collection, it is the lack of emotional connection I feel with it. On the back cover, Rosanna Warren talks about “the delicate arc of these poems intimates – rather than tells – a love story” and I feel that’s part of the problem, because when he owns up to the emotions shrouding the images, eschewing the feeling that he mentions in ‘Description’ – “Once description was all I thought I needed / to bridge things” – there are beautiful moments of clarity that the poems crystallize around, such as, from ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ – “There was nothing to do but memorize / each other”.
Despite the restraint, which at times grows to be its own character in this book (and at times turning it into something more interesting – the game of what’s not being said), but at other times merely feels like a lack, this largely free verse collection is excellent, and better than a lot of first collections out there. A poet to watch, certainly.
Recommended.
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More book reviews from library staff on our blog, BALLYROAN READS: http://librarystaffpicks.wordpress.com
I accidentally ended up reading this book almost three times – by that I mean, I read about two-thirds of it, and got distracted by life, and when I went back to read it, I wanted to read it through, as I felt it befitted that.
Hofmann has a very clean, very precise air to his poetry, which is something that more poets could do with observing – there is not a word wasted. He is a very pastoral poet, enchanted with myth and history.
I feel he is best when he is emotionally involved with the poem, and if there is a problem with this collection, it is the lack of emotional connection I feel with it. On the back cover, Rosanna Warren talks about “the delicate arc of these poems intimates – rather than tells – a love story” and I feel that’s part of the problem, because when he owns up to the emotions shrouding the images, eschewing the feeling that he mentions in ‘Description’ – “Once description was all I thought I needed / to bridge things” – there are beautiful moments of clarity that the poems crystallize around, such as, from ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ – “There was nothing to do but memorize / each other”.
Despite the restraint, which at times grows to be its own character in this book (and at times turning it into something more interesting – the game of what’s not being said), but at other times merely feels like a lack, this largely free verse collection is excellent, and better than a lot of first collections out there. A poet to watch, certainly.
Recommended.
----
More book reviews from library staff on our blog, BALLYROAN READS: http://librarystaffpicks.wordpress.com
February 9, 2022
Let's get something out of the way first: the cover is absolutely brilliant and it is what compelled me to read this collection of poetry. The cover also ties in nicely with the main theme of the poems which, from what I could tell, is an attempt to carve a place in modern day history for queer people who do not conform to traditional norms. The references made to ancient art and characters all appear as attempts to position queerness as something which has had a long history, but one which has been absconded: "So much history is painted in gold/on a golden door, the rest carried off in the floodplain". I very much enjoyed his approach to language which is used in a very precise and straightforward manner but at the same time is very subdued, while the point is made through very subtle references and hints. However, I felt that much of the writing was done in a highly intellectual manner were form was given precedence to feeling. The result is sometimes highly cliché, as in the case of the poem Egyptian Bowl with Fig which you can listen to here https://soundcloud.com/lsupress_and_t...
September 5, 2024
4.5⭐
Richie Hofmann, do you ever flop?
I was so excited to get another collection of Hofmann's poetry; I mean I was anxiously waiting for my book to arrive in the mail. As soon as I got it, I devoured. This was a great collection of works that just embody love, lust, self-reflection, and the passage of time. I love Hofmann's ability to transport me to a destination and give me a visually captivating understanding of that world. Fantastic.
I'd say "A Hundred Lovers" is still my favorite, but man this was a close second. Wonderful!
Richie Hofmann, do you ever flop?
I was so excited to get another collection of Hofmann's poetry; I mean I was anxiously waiting for my book to arrive in the mail. As soon as I got it, I devoured. This was a great collection of works that just embody love, lust, self-reflection, and the passage of time. I love Hofmann's ability to transport me to a destination and give me a visually captivating understanding of that world. Fantastic.
I'd say "A Hundred Lovers" is still my favorite, but man this was a close second. Wonderful!
April 21, 2024
It was interesting moving from Hofmann's newer work to his first. The growth is evident, but the quality is still there. I particularly enjoyed the following selections: "Sea Interlude: Dawn", "Scene from Caravaggio", "October 29, 2012", "Sea Interlude: Storm", "Bright Walls", "Second Empire", "Egyptian Cotton", and "After".
Overall favorite being "Description".
Certainly worth reading aloud on a chilly day.
Overall favorite being "Description".
Certainly worth reading aloud on a chilly day.
February 6, 2022
Richie Hofmann's poetry is austere in tone. I revisited his poems in anticipation of his forthcoming book, "A Hundred Lovers". In "Second Empire", he makes use of implication and elision to weave together a 'delicate arc' of a love story. The setting makes use of ancient cities, references to art and old writers, and throughout there are interludes implying a nautical journey, one culminating in an arrival… somewhere. Whether there is a realization of intimacy is unclear, as the poet often holds back in his poems, and in doing so introduces an ambiguity to his writing.
Sometimes, I think the ambiguity works. In "Sea Interlude: Storm", Hofmann continues a sequence of nautical exploration, but at the end swerves the setting of a stormy sea into sex ("That night, I clung / like a feeding gull to the sureness of flesh: / a man's chin bristled against my stomach...). The writing is beautiful, direct, and clear. However, in a number of other poems, Hofmann's strong images are opaque in meaning.
To be fair, I think that Hofmann is working in a tradition of gnomic poetry, which can be hard to appreciate. But I think my interest in Hofmann's collection is blunted by its leading us to artworks and historical events without giving us the context to appreciate it. The opening poem, "Sea Interlude: Dawn", relies on the paratextual understanding of Antonious's love for Emperor Hadrian and his untimely death to clinch a mood of tentative, aborted intimacy. The triptych, "Crane", makes use in its final sonnet a series of quotes from Hart Crane's poetry, but the juxtapositions don't always land.
The depth of knowledge evinced in Hofmann's writing is impressive. Well-received and well-reviewed in journals (Lambda, Adroit, etc.) when it published, I unfortunately am unable to connect with them. And that's just how it is, sometimes.
Sometimes, I think the ambiguity works. In "Sea Interlude: Storm", Hofmann continues a sequence of nautical exploration, but at the end swerves the setting of a stormy sea into sex ("That night, I clung / like a feeding gull to the sureness of flesh: / a man's chin bristled against my stomach...). The writing is beautiful, direct, and clear. However, in a number of other poems, Hofmann's strong images are opaque in meaning.
To be fair, I think that Hofmann is working in a tradition of gnomic poetry, which can be hard to appreciate. But I think my interest in Hofmann's collection is blunted by its leading us to artworks and historical events without giving us the context to appreciate it. The opening poem, "Sea Interlude: Dawn", relies on the paratextual understanding of Antonious's love for Emperor Hadrian and his untimely death to clinch a mood of tentative, aborted intimacy. The triptych, "Crane", makes use in its final sonnet a series of quotes from Hart Crane's poetry, but the juxtapositions don't always land.
The depth of knowledge evinced in Hofmann's writing is impressive. Well-received and well-reviewed in journals (Lambda, Adroit, etc.) when it published, I unfortunately am unable to connect with them. And that's just how it is, sometimes.
July 17, 2025
Especially enjoyed “Fly” and “Description,” as well as the sea interludes.
December 28, 2016
Hofmann’s collection stands apart primarily because of its indirect silences. In poems guided by loose form and restraint, many of which are written in the amorous tradition of the sonnet. Hofmann’s poems evade excess sentimentality, but still feel deeply intimate; they possess a sense of distance, but they never feel lyrically austere. For instance, consider Hofmann’s forceful mention of pleasure with a formative lover (“the body / he drank cool water with, the body he salted, mile after mile / along the coast, fucked me with, with which / he told me what troubled him”). But it isn’t simply romantic or sexual love to which Hofmann’s speaker feels drawn. So present in these poems is also the interdependence between all forms of art—namely, the relationships between poetry, visual art, and music.
March 28, 2018
Truthfully I haven’t read many poetry collections. Yet my lack of familiarity with the genre cannot negate how compelling, delicate, and utterly beautiful Hoffman’s writing is. Easily one of the best reads I’ve had in an exhaustingly long time.
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December 10, 2022This book has considerable gravitas and elegance. At times, the poems brought to mind early Cavafy (with their references to “the city” as well their eroticism.) But the journey here is more personal, and the poet has a gift for intimacy that’s all his own.
November 21, 2015
A stormy read. Solid poetry worth the time.
read-in-2019
March 18, 2019There was such an emotional disconnect to this collection.
July 23, 2024
Now THIS is a beach read
January 10, 2025
“The sea reflected us, our human emotions. / Then the sea refused us, like the sea.” I just love Richie Hofmann’s work — since reading/adoring his second poetry collection, A Hundred Lovers (one of my favourite books last year), I’d been so keen to delve into his earlier work, the debut collection Second Empire. And what a gorgeous, evocative book it is, a powerful predecessor, an envoy of what was to come in the follow-up; as Hofmann blends the natural and human worlds, the modern and the classical, the metaphysical with the deeply bodily, a sort of timeless queer poetics emerges. Poems like ‘Erotic Archive’, in which “We sleep in his bed / among his silent books” and “The window shows / the sea as unattainable / and distant as art, / our lovers far away”, and the title poem, in which “I am a little white omnivore // in the black water, / inhaling avidly / the absence of shame”, move towards a striking blurring between the body and the soul, the world and us; “When I open my mouth, I am like an insect undressing itself”, Hofmann writes in ‘Idyll’. There are so many stand-out poems in the collection (it’s ridiculous), from the intricate and moving ‘Three Cranes’ to ‘Night Ferry’, from ‘Antique Book’ and its lovely imagery to the four ‘Sea Interlude’ poems which punctuate the collection (namely ‘Storm’ and ‘Moonlight’, the latter of which conjures “my hunger, fallen into air from the mouth / of language”). And I adore ‘Description’: “Once a poet told me, *Your eyes are whores*. / Once description was all I thought I needed / to bridge things. And snow shawled the branches. / And you took the keys from your pocket. And snow feathered the grass / which was mine to remember and forget.” So good!!!
July 4, 2022
The poetry in this collection follows an overarching narrative of ancient cities, art, and history with nautical interludes to draw connections to more personal anecdotes. Hofmann's grasp and command of language is impressive - the poems have a concise brevity to them where no word seems excessive and often times there are precise words or allusions made that encapsulate so much with a single word or phrase - there's something to be said about pulling up a dictionary to clarify an unfamiliar word and find that by definition it seems that no better choice could've been made and that the knowledge I have now of knowing and understanding a new word is a pleasure. My personal favorites of the collection are Sea Interlude: Dawn, Idyll, Capriccio, Fly, and After.
December 30, 2017
Wonderful collection of poems - I love the sea imagery that runs through it which serves as a perfect device with which to talk about the themes of love and life that flow through Hofmann's words. In particular, I enjoyed "At the Palais Garnier," "Scene from Caravaggio", "Sea Interlude: Storm", "Braying", and "Gatekeeper". Hofmann has a strong voice which pulls the reader in from the very beginning and takes the reader on a visceral human story as old as the ages but made new within his lines. Highly recommend.
April 9, 2019
Second Empire by Richie Hofmann: 10/10
A starkly beautiful collection of poetry. A few years back when I was at the New England Young Writers Conference, my mentor recommended me this collection and author, and I am so glad to have been steered toward Hofmann's work. The arc of poems in this work tell a story, one that a reader can never truly finish because they can be relevant at any point in life.
I would go as far as to call this the greatest collection of poetry in modern times. Highly recommend.
A starkly beautiful collection of poetry. A few years back when I was at the New England Young Writers Conference, my mentor recommended me this collection and author, and I am so glad to have been steered toward Hofmann's work. The arc of poems in this work tell a story, one that a reader can never truly finish because they can be relevant at any point in life.
I would go as far as to call this the greatest collection of poetry in modern times. Highly recommend.
November 20, 2022
This collection has a slow start, but this only makes the eventual climax so much more intense. So much emotion is conveyed through form. Really smart poetry, but I don’t find myself coming back to it often. Still, it was really enjoyable, and the emotional climax of this collection is one I won’t forget anytime soon.
July 12, 2024
richie hofmann makes an art out of description. beautiful european summer / winter collection of poems.
faves: sea interludes dawn, storm, moonlight; three cranes; amor vincit omnia; second empire; night ferry; the gates; egyptian cotton; after; imperial city
faves: sea interludes dawn, storm, moonlight; three cranes; amor vincit omnia; second empire; night ferry; the gates; egyptian cotton; after; imperial city
December 7, 2024
I have come again to the perfumed city.
-- "Fresco"
What wickedness clings to me, it sticks
to the last. I will keep my mouth with a bridle.
-- "Braying"
The soul is an aristocrat.
It disdains the body,
staring through the water
at the suggestion of our human forms.
-- "Second Empire"
-- "Fresco"
What wickedness clings to me, it sticks
to the last. I will keep my mouth with a bridle.
-- "Braying"
The soul is an aristocrat.
It disdains the body,
staring through the water
at the suggestion of our human forms.
-- "Second Empire"
December 17, 2024
The ocean gurgles a dead language.
Standing at the water’s edge, I watch myself
loosen into a brief, exquisite blur,
like Antinuous, nearly naked in the cold,
in the morning gone adrift, turning away from love
toward what he knows, even then, is loss.
Standing at the water’s edge, I watch myself
loosen into a brief, exquisite blur,
like Antinuous, nearly naked in the cold,
in the morning gone adrift, turning away from love
toward what he knows, even then, is loss.
April 20, 2025
stunning.
"But I am young. / My hair is the color of antique coins. No one I’ve loved / has died. How can I know or say what hunger is?”
"soot, from scorched wood / which abounded, one imagines, in an empire"
"But I am young. / My hair is the color of antique coins. No one I’ve loved / has died. How can I know or say what hunger is?”
"soot, from scorched wood / which abounded, one imagines, in an empire"
December 23, 2025
didn’t exactly move me though i myself work with similar subject matter like queerness and windows and such, a little sad actually how i didn’t get charged up, maybe the poems are holding back, maybe elio from cmbyn might love this
January 22, 2022
"Idyll"/ "Three Cranes" / "Fresco" / "Mirror" / "Second Empire" / "The Gates" / "After"
February 11, 2022
Well.....
September 28, 2022
Richie Hoffman does it again with delicately made poems celebrating queer love, the cleverly placed metaphors is a thrill to dig my teeth into what a timely poem collection
August 1, 2023
I really enjoyed A Hundred Lovers, so I went hunting for a copy of this earlier collection. I found the newer one richer and more satisfying.
April 30, 2025
Much better!
March 5, 2017
Vivid poems about sexual awakening, with an oceanic poetic theme. The metaphors and similes are quality – "I am like an insect undressing itself;" "Where the sky, Chinese red, dropped/ its rawboned chin to the sea;" "One by one, stars broke/ sharply into the harbor/ like silver extracted from lead in a bowl."
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews