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Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty
The new poetry collection by Tony Hoagland, the award-winning author of What Narcissim Means To Me and Donkey Gospel
In Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, Tony Hoagland is deep inside a republic that no longer offers reliable signage, in which comfort and suffering are intimately entwined, and whose citizens gasp for oxygen without knowing why. With Hoagland’s trademark humor and social commentary, these poems are exhilarating for their fierce moral curiosity, their desire to name the truth, and their celebration of the resilience of human nature.
In Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, Tony Hoagland is deep inside a republic that no longer offers reliable signage, in which comfort and suffering are intimately entwined, and whose citizens gasp for oxygen without knowing why. With Hoagland’s trademark humor and social commentary, these poems are exhilarating for their fierce moral curiosity, their desire to name the truth, and their celebration of the resilience of human nature.
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
14 people are currently reading
430 people want to read
About the author
Tony Hoagland
48 books191 followersTony Hoagland was born in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He earned a BA from the University of Iowa and an MFA from the University of Arizona.
Hoagland was the author of the poetry collections Sweet Ruin (1992), which was chosen for the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and won the Zacharis Award from Emerson College; Donkey Gospel (1998), winner of the James Laughlin Award; What Narcissism Means to Me (2003), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Rain (2005); Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty (2010); Application for Release from the Dream (2015); Recent Changes in the Vernacular (2017); and Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (2018).
He has also published two collections of essays about poetry: Real Sofistakashun (2006) and Twenty Poems That Could Save America and Other Essays (2014). Hoagland’s poetry is known for its acerbic, witty take on contemporary life and “straight talk,” in the words of New York Times reviewer Dwight Garner: “At his frequent best … Hoagland is demonically in touch with the American demotic.”
Hoagland’s many honors and awards included fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He received the O.B. Hardison Prize for Poetry and Teaching from the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award, and the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. Hoagland taught at the University of Houston and in the Warren Wilson MFA program. He died in October 2018..
Hoagland was the author of the poetry collections Sweet Ruin (1992), which was chosen for the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and won the Zacharis Award from Emerson College; Donkey Gospel (1998), winner of the James Laughlin Award; What Narcissism Means to Me (2003), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Rain (2005); Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty (2010); Application for Release from the Dream (2015); Recent Changes in the Vernacular (2017); and Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God (2018).
He has also published two collections of essays about poetry: Real Sofistakashun (2006) and Twenty Poems That Could Save America and Other Essays (2014). Hoagland’s poetry is known for its acerbic, witty take on contemporary life and “straight talk,” in the words of New York Times reviewer Dwight Garner: “At his frequent best … Hoagland is demonically in touch with the American demotic.”
Hoagland’s many honors and awards included fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He received the O.B. Hardison Prize for Poetry and Teaching from the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Poetry Foundation’s Mark Twain Award, and the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. Hoagland taught at the University of Houston and in the Warren Wilson MFA program. He died in October 2018..
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
July 1, 2014
Address to the Beloved (p.32)
Sweetie,
what do you mean
when you tell me to get real?
Do you mean that I should stop
slipping my hand down the back of your pants
when we are out in public?
Or that I should do it more often?
Do you mean I should acquaint myself better
with Baltic-state politics?
Or scrape and wash the dishes in the sink
right after we have eaten?
Should I stop trying to flirt
with the whole wide world,
and get down to business,
or the reverse?
Get more health insurance, water the lawn,
read philosophy at night?
When you say "real," are you implying
I need to fire the shrink,
become more austere,
less sentimental about my friends?
Or do you mean that I should simply
stand here,
without being clever or cute,
enduring the light
when what I want is to
hide my face
or to crawl inside you like a cupboard
and live on your feelings
instead of my own?
When you say I leave a lot to be desired,
is that a good thing?
When you said you would leave me
to my own devices,
what did you mean? Did you mean this?
Sweetie,
what do you mean
when you tell me to get real?
Do you mean that I should stop
slipping my hand down the back of your pants
when we are out in public?
Or that I should do it more often?
Do you mean I should acquaint myself better
with Baltic-state politics?
Or scrape and wash the dishes in the sink
right after we have eaten?
Should I stop trying to flirt
with the whole wide world,
and get down to business,
or the reverse?
Get more health insurance, water the lawn,
read philosophy at night?
When you say "real," are you implying
I need to fire the shrink,
become more austere,
less sentimental about my friends?
Or do you mean that I should simply
stand here,
without being clever or cute,
enduring the light
when what I want is to
hide my face
or to crawl inside you like a cupboard
and live on your feelings
instead of my own?
When you say I leave a lot to be desired,
is that a good thing?
When you said you would leave me
to my own devices,
what did you mean? Did you mean this?
March 8, 2011
I realized this was due yesterday and so read it quickly over lunch. Keep this in mind.
In general, I'm all for less poems in poetry books. I think modern career poets write too much and should let things simmer, or perhaps more appropriately, should treat their poetry like caves of slowly forming stalactites. But I realize that not everyone has the same writing habits, and some people have to write a lot. I also think that this book is a good example of why less should be more. There were many poems here that just made no impression, or which had one or two good lines to be immediately flattened by the next flat stanza.
There were a couple of times that I felt momentum building in the words, but mostly I felt like I was wading. This, coupled with the fact that the book seemed marketed as George Saunders meets poetic conceit but read like a slightly sharper Billy Collins, or just some guy's dad writing his observations in a notebook while shopping at a strip mall. Not to mention that the cultural references are really out of date. In fact, the lowest point of the book was a poem about Britney Spears being criticized for looking fat in her first comeback performance at the MTV awards (after she had her 2nd child).
HIGH POINTS!:
Big Grab
Wild
The Allegory of the Temp Agency
Jazz
In general, I'm all for less poems in poetry books. I think modern career poets write too much and should let things simmer, or perhaps more appropriately, should treat their poetry like caves of slowly forming stalactites. But I realize that not everyone has the same writing habits, and some people have to write a lot. I also think that this book is a good example of why less should be more. There were many poems here that just made no impression, or which had one or two good lines to be immediately flattened by the next flat stanza.
There were a couple of times that I felt momentum building in the words, but mostly I felt like I was wading. This, coupled with the fact that the book seemed marketed as George Saunders meets poetic conceit but read like a slightly sharper Billy Collins, or just some guy's dad writing his observations in a notebook while shopping at a strip mall. Not to mention that the cultural references are really out of date. In fact, the lowest point of the book was a poem about Britney Spears being criticized for looking fat in her first comeback performance at the MTV awards (after she had her 2nd child).
HIGH POINTS!:
Big Grab
Wild
The Allegory of the Temp Agency
Jazz
July 3, 2010
This book was my introduction to Tony Hoagland. I like what I see. Hoagland's poems think stylishly about the world they observe while at the same time exhibiting a quirkiness, as if to ask what else could we expect. I like that sideways look at things. But each poem has a particular beauty. We can all relate to the poignancy of a poem about the declining health of a parent, such as "My Father's Vocabulary." Or the insight in a poem about the hostess at a party who has trouble keeping the strap of her gown up. By reflecting his emotions off her like sonar he finally concludes his strong attraction says more about himself than it does her. Hoagland's so adept at making us face the facts before us that many of these poems seem to leave the ground. They take off from a lauching thought or phrase about a person or event to become a verbal ascent to vision. Whether about race or sexuality or the mundane fact of a vine climbing a wall, it's almost as if they begin in free association to become the controlled arrow of purpose and design, aimed at the target of discovery. There's much to like here.
Want to read
March 2, 2012Hoagland: A New Window into Reality
In his poetry, Hoagland describes real-life situations through a window we don’t normally look through. Mundane topics are given a fresh perspective through Hoagland’s eyes, such as in his poem, “Big Grab.”
The corn-chip engineer gets a bright idea,
And talks to the corn-chip executive
And six months later at the factory they begin subtracting
A few chips from every bag,
but they still call it on the outside wrapper,
The Big Grab,
So the concept of Big is quietly modified
To mean More or Less Large, or Only Slightly
Less Big Than Before.
Who hasn’t noticed that while chip bags are the same size, there’s more air in them than chips?! But Hoagland thinks to write a poem about it.
“Complicit with Everything” is an interesting, 25-line poem consisting of one sentence. What makes it more worthy of being singled out is the fact that the poem revolves around a weed nourished, from the condensation dripping off an air-conditioner, belonging to an apartment dweller suffering from cancer. Hoagland gives a detailed description of how the weed grows up the wall and then west to the man’s apartment window where they are both (the weed and the man) described as being “complicit with nothing but everything.”
“Address to the Beloved,” is a sarcastic attempt to understand the real meaning behind his “beloved’s” words, and it made me feel sorry for the guy:
“When you say ‘real,’ are you implying I need
to fire the shrink,
become more austere,
less sentimental about my friends?
Or do you mean that I should simply
stand here,
without being clever or cute,
enduring the light
when what I want is to
hide my face
or to crawl inside you like a cupboard
and live on your feelings
instead of my own?
When you say I leave a lot to be desired,
is that a good thing?
When you said you would leave me
to my own devices,
what did you mean? Did you mean this?”
“My Father’s Vocabulary” is a poignant description of his father’s life using the American speech as a way of marking time. In the last few verses of this poem, Hoagland eloquently tells how his father’s mental state has regressed to the same condition as when he was born. “He was born between ‘Dirty Commies’ and ‘Nice tits.’” Hoagland ends with this: “Our last visit took place in the twilight zone of a clinic,/between “feeling no pain” and “catching a buzz.”//For that occasion I had carefully prepared/a suitcase full of small talk//--but he was already packed and going backwards,/with the “Nice tits” and the “Dirty Commies,”//to the small town of his vocabulary,/somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. “
Read “Dialectical Materialism” slowly. It’s a complicated but delightful poem set at a grocery store. Hoagland incorporates the cultural characteristics of many countries and nationalities in just a few pages and he has chosen his words perfectly. It’s very amusing.
Hoagland’s “In Praise of Their Divorce,” opens with a very sobering look at the subtle realities of facing divorce – the time leading up to it and time just after the split.
“Let us keep in mind the hidden forces
which had struggled underground for years
to push their way to the surface—and that finally did,
cracking the crust, moving the plates of earth apart,
releasing the pent-up energy required
for them to rent their own apartments,
for her to join the softball league for single mothers
for him to read Reddy the Fox over his speakerphone
at bedtime to the six-year-old.”
In the rest of the poem, Hoagland compares life after divorce with the various stages of growing up: “…divorce is the being born again…” and “endurance is the graduation.” I particularly like the last few lines:
“it is two spaceships coming out of retirement,
Flying away from their dead world,
The burning booster rocket of divorce
Falling off behind them.
The bystanders pointing at the sky and saying, Look.”
That’s good! I really like this poem, maybe because I have lived through the good days and bad days of marriage, which make me appreciate Hoagland’s words even more.
Hoagland has a mysterious way of connecting the reader with his poems. Sometimes it’s not immediate but eventually, you get it. I read most of these poems several times; and I’m glad I did because each time, they meant more to me than the time before. I suggest spending considerable time with this book to appreciate the full effect of Hoagland’s poetic artistry.
In his poetry, Hoagland describes real-life situations through a window we don’t normally look through. Mundane topics are given a fresh perspective through Hoagland’s eyes, such as in his poem, “Big Grab.”
The corn-chip engineer gets a bright idea,
And talks to the corn-chip executive
And six months later at the factory they begin subtracting
A few chips from every bag,
but they still call it on the outside wrapper,
The Big Grab,
So the concept of Big is quietly modified
To mean More or Less Large, or Only Slightly
Less Big Than Before.
Who hasn’t noticed that while chip bags are the same size, there’s more air in them than chips?! But Hoagland thinks to write a poem about it.
“Complicit with Everything” is an interesting, 25-line poem consisting of one sentence. What makes it more worthy of being singled out is the fact that the poem revolves around a weed nourished, from the condensation dripping off an air-conditioner, belonging to an apartment dweller suffering from cancer. Hoagland gives a detailed description of how the weed grows up the wall and then west to the man’s apartment window where they are both (the weed and the man) described as being “complicit with nothing but everything.”
“Address to the Beloved,” is a sarcastic attempt to understand the real meaning behind his “beloved’s” words, and it made me feel sorry for the guy:
“When you say ‘real,’ are you implying I need
to fire the shrink,
become more austere,
less sentimental about my friends?
Or do you mean that I should simply
stand here,
without being clever or cute,
enduring the light
when what I want is to
hide my face
or to crawl inside you like a cupboard
and live on your feelings
instead of my own?
When you say I leave a lot to be desired,
is that a good thing?
When you said you would leave me
to my own devices,
what did you mean? Did you mean this?”
“My Father’s Vocabulary” is a poignant description of his father’s life using the American speech as a way of marking time. In the last few verses of this poem, Hoagland eloquently tells how his father’s mental state has regressed to the same condition as when he was born. “He was born between ‘Dirty Commies’ and ‘Nice tits.’” Hoagland ends with this: “Our last visit took place in the twilight zone of a clinic,/between “feeling no pain” and “catching a buzz.”//For that occasion I had carefully prepared/a suitcase full of small talk//--but he was already packed and going backwards,/with the “Nice tits” and the “Dirty Commies,”//to the small town of his vocabulary,/somewhere outside of Pittsburgh. “
Read “Dialectical Materialism” slowly. It’s a complicated but delightful poem set at a grocery store. Hoagland incorporates the cultural characteristics of many countries and nationalities in just a few pages and he has chosen his words perfectly. It’s very amusing.
Hoagland’s “In Praise of Their Divorce,” opens with a very sobering look at the subtle realities of facing divorce – the time leading up to it and time just after the split.
“Let us keep in mind the hidden forces
which had struggled underground for years
to push their way to the surface—and that finally did,
cracking the crust, moving the plates of earth apart,
releasing the pent-up energy required
for them to rent their own apartments,
for her to join the softball league for single mothers
for him to read Reddy the Fox over his speakerphone
at bedtime to the six-year-old.”
In the rest of the poem, Hoagland compares life after divorce with the various stages of growing up: “…divorce is the being born again…” and “endurance is the graduation.” I particularly like the last few lines:
“it is two spaceships coming out of retirement,
Flying away from their dead world,
The burning booster rocket of divorce
Falling off behind them.
The bystanders pointing at the sky and saying, Look.”
That’s good! I really like this poem, maybe because I have lived through the good days and bad days of marriage, which make me appreciate Hoagland’s words even more.
Hoagland has a mysterious way of connecting the reader with his poems. Sometimes it’s not immediate but eventually, you get it. I read most of these poems several times; and I’m glad I did because each time, they meant more to me than the time before. I suggest spending considerable time with this book to appreciate the full effect of Hoagland’s poetic artistry.
June 17, 2019
A bit, um, on the nose?
I mean, Tony Hoagland and I share similar worldviews, but I found myself rolling my eyes way too many times. A beautiful girl on a billboard is covered with melted cheese under "the breathalyzer moon" (5). America is a crashed jumbo jet, "its dependence on foreign oil / brought to a sudden conclusion" (66). America writes a dear-abby letter about her blood-drenched, imperialist father (15). Like, true, but also calm down.
He's a nice contrast with Mary Oliver though. My book club read A Thousand Mornings alongside this Hoagland collection, and I enjoyed how his first poem "Description" was kind of an indictment of Oliver's whole shtick: He describes an overwrought nature scene of birds and trees and petals and then goes, "In all this a place must be / reserved for human suffering / ... How description was the sign of acceptance." I feel that.
I also feel this: "Oh life! Can you blame me / for making a scene?" (49).
Hoagland is at his best not with giant, contrived metaphors but with the quieter moments between humans just trying to be.
Favorites: "I Have News For You," "The Perfect Moment," "Field Guide," "Rhythm and Blues," and "Wild"
I mean, Tony Hoagland and I share similar worldviews, but I found myself rolling my eyes way too many times. A beautiful girl on a billboard is covered with melted cheese under "the breathalyzer moon" (5). America is a crashed jumbo jet, "its dependence on foreign oil / brought to a sudden conclusion" (66). America writes a dear-abby letter about her blood-drenched, imperialist father (15). Like, true, but also calm down.
He's a nice contrast with Mary Oliver though. My book club read A Thousand Mornings alongside this Hoagland collection, and I enjoyed how his first poem "Description" was kind of an indictment of Oliver's whole shtick: He describes an overwrought nature scene of birds and trees and petals and then goes, "In all this a place must be / reserved for human suffering / ... How description was the sign of acceptance." I feel that.
I also feel this: "Oh life! Can you blame me / for making a scene?" (49).
Hoagland is at his best not with giant, contrived metaphors but with the quieter moments between humans just trying to be.
Favorites: "I Have News For You," "The Perfect Moment," "Field Guide," "Rhythm and Blues," and "Wild"
December 2, 2018
I know nothing about modern poetry. But, man, I can dig pessimism! In almost every poem here I found some lines that I want to type in as "quotes" and click the "like" button on. But I won't do that.
Others have copied some of the poems into their reviews already, so I'll quote Joe Strummer instead.
Others have copied some of the poems into their reviews already, so I'll quote Joe Strummer instead.
I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for a special offer
Guaranteed personality.
March 18, 2010
This book is a treasure trove of good poems in the best Hoagland style - I'll be re-reading it. (Too bad there's not a re-reading section on goodreads.) And I love the title - I walk around muttering it to myself, especially when I see a Honda.
September 20, 2015
Description
A bird with a cry like a cell phone says something
to a bird that sounds like a manual typewriter.
Out of sight in the woods, the creek trickles
its ongoing sentence; from treble to baritone,
from dependent clause to interrogative.
The trees rustle over the house: they are excited
to be entering the poem
in the late afternoon, when the clouds are creamy and massive
as if to illustrate contentment.
And maybe a wind will pluck pff the last dead leaves;
and a cold rain will splash
dainty white petals from the crab apple tree
down to the ground,
the pink and the ground mingled there,
like two different messages scribbled over each other.
In all of this place must be
reserved for human suffering:
the sick and unloved, the chemically confused
the ones who believed desperately in insight;
the ones addicted to change.
How our thoughts clawed and pummeled the walls.
How we tried but could not find our way out.
In the wake of our effort, how we rested.
How description was the sign of our acceptance.
-- Tony Hoagland
A bird with a cry like a cell phone says something
to a bird that sounds like a manual typewriter.
Out of sight in the woods, the creek trickles
its ongoing sentence; from treble to baritone,
from dependent clause to interrogative.
The trees rustle over the house: they are excited
to be entering the poem
in the late afternoon, when the clouds are creamy and massive
as if to illustrate contentment.
And maybe a wind will pluck pff the last dead leaves;
and a cold rain will splash
dainty white petals from the crab apple tree
down to the ground,
the pink and the ground mingled there,
like two different messages scribbled over each other.
In all of this place must be
reserved for human suffering:
the sick and unloved, the chemically confused
the ones who believed desperately in insight;
the ones addicted to change.
How our thoughts clawed and pummeled the walls.
How we tried but could not find our way out.
In the wake of our effort, how we rested.
How description was the sign of our acceptance.
-- Tony Hoagland
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2010
The best ones are the least overt, the ones that most resist symbolism and moralizing. And he seems to have to tell himself within these poems to do this: "Cement Truck," for instance, shows a narrator resisting the urge to transform a cement-mixing truck through metaphor. Same with "Field Guide," the book's shortest poem and one of the most memorable because it is so deliberately simple and descriptive. I love big rangy indecisive satirical narrative poems, but it's clear he can do more, and should more often.
December 9, 2010
Excellent poetry collection. I really liked "Dialectical Materialism," "Foghorn," "Field Guide," and "Muchness."
July 13, 2011
Humorous/witty poetry is sorely underrated and always welcome.
March 3, 2013
I often wonder about "subjective units of pleasure" (SUP!) which like subjective units of distress might have nothing to do with the poetic craft of a collection but
the state of mind of the reader. I must have been in a mood where I wanted a combination of humor, compassion, and a bit of philosophy to address observations of daily American life.
Enter the title and ponder why a person might be "unincorporated" and why a Late Honda Dynasty. Just last week, many of Hoagland's poems from his 1998 "The Donkey Gospel" appeared in Writer's Almanac and other internet poem sources, one of which was "Honda Pavarotti". Ah... the opening stanza is made possible by driving, although the poem is about the opera on the radio and true to Hoagland's genius, "the whole car plunges down the canyon of his throat.". No more car after that... but can you imagine America without car, without instant radio?
What is this modern era filled with cell phones, corn chips and food courts, broken swings and a Starbucks Golgotha ? Hoagland allows us a look, using components of everyday life from ads, dear Abby letters, material stuff; intimate insights about love, pain, loneliness; America as a "jumbo jet" in a dream (in a poem called "Disaster Movie".
To give you an example of my "SUP" reading, I will use "Plastic" as example. It is the title of one of my favorite poems which I heard him read in January, 2013 at the Palm Beach Festival. It becomes a study of the conditional -- one could explain the world through it... one could talk about "how the big molecules were bound up in chains/ by chemical reactions, then liquefied and poured like soup
into intricate factory molds
for toy soldiers and backscratchers , airsick bags and high-tech Teflon
roof racks;
you could mull over the ethics of enslaving matter
even while feeling admiration for the genius it takes
to persuade a molecule to become part of a casserole container."
At first amused by the speaker of the poem, seduced by his wit, I absolutely lose my heart to him as he starts in on personal plastic, then goes into relationships and how much easier plastic is to "stretch than /human nature" and then, just like a rubber band, comes a term "Interpersonal Adhesive/Malfunction" and on the poem gallops through another tercet and 5 more irregular couplets and a final tercet which shows how "indifferent silence" stretches with the final 9 syllables which start mid-line on the final line.
Poem after poem, I nodded, oh yes, what a novel way to think, oh yes, I know that feeling, oh yes, oh yes. Clever, but not trite, provocative but set with brilliance
that shines with empathy.
I end with the last two stanza of "Muchness"
"And the narrative then, having done its work,
it vanished too,
leaving just its affectionate cousin description behind.
-- Description,
which lingers,
and loves for no reason."
"Description", which is the opening poem. Read this book, you will understand why he calls it "sign of our acceptance" .
(The epigraphs, one by Oppen from "the Building of the Skyscraper", the other by Rumi, prepare a theshhold that announced to me: "you are about to enter 46 poems that blend modern life to age old wisdom, the difficulty of meaning, solace of nature." I'd love to hear other readers' takes! )
the state of mind of the reader. I must have been in a mood where I wanted a combination of humor, compassion, and a bit of philosophy to address observations of daily American life.
Enter the title and ponder why a person might be "unincorporated" and why a Late Honda Dynasty. Just last week, many of Hoagland's poems from his 1998 "The Donkey Gospel" appeared in Writer's Almanac and other internet poem sources, one of which was "Honda Pavarotti". Ah... the opening stanza is made possible by driving, although the poem is about the opera on the radio and true to Hoagland's genius, "the whole car plunges down the canyon of his throat.". No more car after that... but can you imagine America without car, without instant radio?
What is this modern era filled with cell phones, corn chips and food courts, broken swings and a Starbucks Golgotha ? Hoagland allows us a look, using components of everyday life from ads, dear Abby letters, material stuff; intimate insights about love, pain, loneliness; America as a "jumbo jet" in a dream (in a poem called "Disaster Movie".
To give you an example of my "SUP" reading, I will use "Plastic" as example. It is the title of one of my favorite poems which I heard him read in January, 2013 at the Palm Beach Festival. It becomes a study of the conditional -- one could explain the world through it... one could talk about "how the big molecules were bound up in chains/ by chemical reactions, then liquefied and poured like soup
into intricate factory molds
for toy soldiers and backscratchers , airsick bags and high-tech Teflon
roof racks;
you could mull over the ethics of enslaving matter
even while feeling admiration for the genius it takes
to persuade a molecule to become part of a casserole container."
At first amused by the speaker of the poem, seduced by his wit, I absolutely lose my heart to him as he starts in on personal plastic, then goes into relationships and how much easier plastic is to "stretch than /human nature" and then, just like a rubber band, comes a term "Interpersonal Adhesive/Malfunction" and on the poem gallops through another tercet and 5 more irregular couplets and a final tercet which shows how "indifferent silence" stretches with the final 9 syllables which start mid-line on the final line.
Poem after poem, I nodded, oh yes, what a novel way to think, oh yes, I know that feeling, oh yes, oh yes. Clever, but not trite, provocative but set with brilliance
that shines with empathy.
I end with the last two stanza of "Muchness"
"And the narrative then, having done its work,
it vanished too,
leaving just its affectionate cousin description behind.
-- Description,
which lingers,
and loves for no reason."
"Description", which is the opening poem. Read this book, you will understand why he calls it "sign of our acceptance" .
(The epigraphs, one by Oppen from "the Building of the Skyscraper", the other by Rumi, prepare a theshhold that announced to me: "you are about to enter 46 poems that blend modern life to age old wisdom, the difficulty of meaning, solace of nature." I'd love to hear other readers' takes! )
Read
May 7, 2016Tony Hoagland? Billy Collins Lite, I'd say, though Tony would champ at the bit at that one. And certainly the themes are different, Tony being attuned a lot to money and capitalism and the more unseemly sides of American life as we know it. Why, be still my heart, he even took a shot at cellphones in one poem (so the cheese does NOT stand alone, turns out). I wonder if he goes "cellphone commando," too?
Anyway, if you're cherching a form poem, you're reading up the wrong tree. Tony's a free verse guy, through and through, and is loosey with this goosey stanzas, too. He is equally at home with couplets, tercets, quartets, and ... lord help me... whatever a 5-line stanza might be (cinquain?). He doesn't mind mixing and matching, either. If he's 80% in on a poem of tercets, in another words, he may switch to couplets or quatrains for the stretch drive. So much for fretting over a form inside the formless housing of free verse.
Some poems were a bit off, but most had lines to strike the fancy. Less had wall-to-wall fanciness. Certainly he's at home with metaphor, with taking an idea from one realm, saddling another, and riding off for an extended ride. Here's one with a more serious side:
EXPENSIVE HOTEL
When the middle-class black family in the carpeted hall
passes the immigrant housekeeper from Belize, oh
that is an interesting moment. One pair of eyes is lowered.
That's how you know you are part
of a master race -- when someone
humbles themselves without even having to be asked.
And in that moment trembling
from the stress of its creation,
we feel the illness underneath our skin --
the unquenchable wish to be thought well of
wilting and dying a little
while trying to squeeze by
the cart piled high with fresh towels and sheets,
small bars of soaps and bottles
of bright green shampoo,
which are provided for guests to steal.
As you can see, not only is Tony not constrained by a consistent stanza size, he is not bothered by different line lengths. Some of his work is of a more "classical" bent, which is a nice change. Take, for instance, this one:
MUCHNESS
I saw you in the rainy morning
from the window of the hotel room,
running down the gangplank to board the boat.
You were wearing your famous orange pants
which are really apricot
and the boat rocked a little
as you stepped on its edge.
You were going to work
with your backpack and sketchbook
and your bushy grey hair
which bursts out in weather
like a steel wool bouquet.
That’s how my heart is, I thought—
It lies coiled inside of me, asleep,
then springs out and shocks me
with all of its muchness.
But as I was dreaming, your boat pulled away.
Then there was just the grey sheen
of the harbor left behind, like unpolished steel
and the steep green woods that grow down to the shore
and the gauze of mist on the hills.
It was your vanished boat
which gave the scene a shape,
with its suggestion of journey and destination.
And the narrative then, having done its work,
it vanished too,
leaving just its affectionate cousin description behind;
—description,
which lingers,
and loves for no reason.
I like it very muchness and, overall, the same is true for this collection, Honda Dynasty notwithstanding (I'm a Ford guy).
Anyway, if you're cherching a form poem, you're reading up the wrong tree. Tony's a free verse guy, through and through, and is loosey with this goosey stanzas, too. He is equally at home with couplets, tercets, quartets, and ... lord help me... whatever a 5-line stanza might be (cinquain?). He doesn't mind mixing and matching, either. If he's 80% in on a poem of tercets, in another words, he may switch to couplets or quatrains for the stretch drive. So much for fretting over a form inside the formless housing of free verse.
Some poems were a bit off, but most had lines to strike the fancy. Less had wall-to-wall fanciness. Certainly he's at home with metaphor, with taking an idea from one realm, saddling another, and riding off for an extended ride. Here's one with a more serious side:
EXPENSIVE HOTEL
When the middle-class black family in the carpeted hall
passes the immigrant housekeeper from Belize, oh
that is an interesting moment. One pair of eyes is lowered.
That's how you know you are part
of a master race -- when someone
humbles themselves without even having to be asked.
And in that moment trembling
from the stress of its creation,
we feel the illness underneath our skin --
the unquenchable wish to be thought well of
wilting and dying a little
while trying to squeeze by
the cart piled high with fresh towels and sheets,
small bars of soaps and bottles
of bright green shampoo,
which are provided for guests to steal.
As you can see, not only is Tony not constrained by a consistent stanza size, he is not bothered by different line lengths. Some of his work is of a more "classical" bent, which is a nice change. Take, for instance, this one:
MUCHNESS
I saw you in the rainy morning
from the window of the hotel room,
running down the gangplank to board the boat.
You were wearing your famous orange pants
which are really apricot
and the boat rocked a little
as you stepped on its edge.
You were going to work
with your backpack and sketchbook
and your bushy grey hair
which bursts out in weather
like a steel wool bouquet.
That’s how my heart is, I thought—
It lies coiled inside of me, asleep,
then springs out and shocks me
with all of its muchness.
But as I was dreaming, your boat pulled away.
Then there was just the grey sheen
of the harbor left behind, like unpolished steel
and the steep green woods that grow down to the shore
and the gauze of mist on the hills.
It was your vanished boat
which gave the scene a shape,
with its suggestion of journey and destination.
And the narrative then, having done its work,
it vanished too,
leaving just its affectionate cousin description behind;
—description,
which lingers,
and loves for no reason.
I like it very muchness and, overall, the same is true for this collection, Honda Dynasty notwithstanding (I'm a Ford guy).
August 9, 2017
Like the first desperate inhale after holding your breath underwater until you thought you might pass out.
May 19, 2010
I wish I could just write two seperate reviews for this book.....
Section 1 = 5 stars
This is some of the finest poetry that I have read in quite some time. "Hard Rain" alone, is worth the price of the book. The entire first section, though, is absolutely full of poetic gems. Witty, bitter, melancholy, political, personal. Just absolutely fantastic. I folded over nearly every page of that first section.
Then I read the rest of the book...
Rest of the book = 0 stars.
Not only did I feel that the writing was flat later in the book, I also was just put off by some of the subject matter. Not surprisingly, (after other poems of his that I have read,) he seems a bit masochistic, but I also felt that some of the poems were plainly racist.
I know there is a good bit of controversy surrounding several of these poems and whether they are indeed racist. I read the article on thepotomacjournal.com. I've read the arguments that Tony is not a bigoted poet. I just can't agree. While I typically side whole-heartedly on the author intent side of the argument, if this many readers are seeing racist intent in Hoagland's words, then I'm not sure they can be wrong.
I know that sounds like a small-minded argument in a way, but I just can't in good conscience ever purchase another of this man's books unless I am convinced that there isn't an underlying tone of racial (and gender) superiority.
Section 1 = 5 stars
This is some of the finest poetry that I have read in quite some time. "Hard Rain" alone, is worth the price of the book. The entire first section, though, is absolutely full of poetic gems. Witty, bitter, melancholy, political, personal. Just absolutely fantastic. I folded over nearly every page of that first section.
Then I read the rest of the book...
Rest of the book = 0 stars.
Not only did I feel that the writing was flat later in the book, I also was just put off by some of the subject matter. Not surprisingly, (after other poems of his that I have read,) he seems a bit masochistic, but I also felt that some of the poems were plainly racist.
I know there is a good bit of controversy surrounding several of these poems and whether they are indeed racist. I read the article on thepotomacjournal.com. I've read the arguments that Tony is not a bigoted poet. I just can't agree. While I typically side whole-heartedly on the author intent side of the argument, if this many readers are seeing racist intent in Hoagland's words, then I'm not sure they can be wrong.
I know that sounds like a small-minded argument in a way, but I just can't in good conscience ever purchase another of this man's books unless I am convinced that there isn't an underlying tone of racial (and gender) superiority.
March 10, 2012
On Valentine's Day PBS' "Newshour" included a reading of Hoagland's "Romantic Moment" from this collection. Not sure how I'd missed him, but that was my introduction and I knew I needed to read him. So I started with this collection because of that poem.
Love this man's off-the-wall thoughts. It would be quite a trip to worm into his mind to study his stream of consciousness. Unlike many of his contemporary peers who try to be uber-artsy, Hoagland pulls it off and makes sense. Fascinating sense. I think "Snowglobe" is a good example. It's just plain brilliant. Just a litte ol' snowglobe turns into a musing on macroeconomics. But he sets you up, he tells you this is no ordinary snowglobe. He turns a few phrases, demonstrates masterly word choice, and next thing you know....he's got you thinking about the order of the world.
A "Cement Truck" inspires him to write it as a metaphor of poetry, (and OMG is it good) and then near the end he decides it's a mistake but he's put so much work into it and well, I won't spoil the ending. But again, it's brilliant.
And then there's "Romantic Moment" which includes this -
"and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and vomit softly into the mouth of my beloved"
Well now, tell me, where does a critique go from there?
Love this man's off-the-wall thoughts. It would be quite a trip to worm into his mind to study his stream of consciousness. Unlike many of his contemporary peers who try to be uber-artsy, Hoagland pulls it off and makes sense. Fascinating sense. I think "Snowglobe" is a good example. It's just plain brilliant. Just a litte ol' snowglobe turns into a musing on macroeconomics. But he sets you up, he tells you this is no ordinary snowglobe. He turns a few phrases, demonstrates masterly word choice, and next thing you know....he's got you thinking about the order of the world.
A "Cement Truck" inspires him to write it as a metaphor of poetry, (and OMG is it good) and then near the end he decides it's a mistake but he's put so much work into it and well, I won't spoil the ending. But again, it's brilliant.
And then there's "Romantic Moment" which includes this -
"and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and vomit softly into the mouth of my beloved"
Well now, tell me, where does a critique go from there?
December 22, 2009
I did not love this collection as much as the last two. Maybe in part it's just getting used to his style? Not sure. Different themes seem to recur in each book and the ones this time -- international politics, consumerism, cancer -- didn't strike as much of a chord with me as some of the earlier topics.
Some pieces may not age well, with references to Bill Gates, Britney Spears, the DC-area snipers, etc. But it is nice to see references to current events in the meantime.
There are a handful of erotic pieces in this collection. Straightforward ones.
Dialectical Materialism was one of the strongest pieces until a disorienting 'plot twist' at the end. I missed how that fit in. Also particularly liked I Have News for You, Big Grab, and Plastic.
Random bits:
"the flounce of a pedigreed blonde"
"The middle aged man
who cannot make love to his wife
with the erectile authority of yesteryear"
Visiting his dying father:
"For that occasion, I had carefully prepared
a suitcase full of small talk"
Some pieces may not age well, with references to Bill Gates, Britney Spears, the DC-area snipers, etc. But it is nice to see references to current events in the meantime.
There are a handful of erotic pieces in this collection. Straightforward ones.
Dialectical Materialism was one of the strongest pieces until a disorienting 'plot twist' at the end. I missed how that fit in. Also particularly liked I Have News for You, Big Grab, and Plastic.
Random bits:
"the flounce of a pedigreed blonde"
"The middle aged man
who cannot make love to his wife
with the erectile authority of yesteryear"
Visiting his dying father:
"For that occasion, I had carefully prepared
a suitcase full of small talk"
October 17, 2014
Singing the joys and sorrows of life under late capitalism with its attendant entertainments, mediascapes and neon dreams, Hoagland embraces all aspects of 21st century life like a home-schooled Walt Whitman who finds where the remote control is hidden when his parents are away. Reeling unsupervised from channel to channel, and modality to modality, Hoagland, at times gleefully, and at times meditatively, describes America, febrile, multitudinous, cancerous, for sale. His poems detail the erosion of and commodification of language and communication while they simultaneously shock it back to life with jarring defibrillating juxtapositions of the poetic and commercial, of the corporate and the corporeal, of the promise and the reality, of the senseless and the sentimental. Hoagland is a reckless birdwatcher, scribbling furiously in his field guide to the 21st century, a linguistic Banksy, spray painting sermons under overpasses, on billboards, even on the surface of the unreachable moon.
July 18, 2010
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty by Tony Hoagland is his first collection of poems in 10 years, according to the Graywolf representative at the expo. The collection features poems that call into question the realities of the modern world from our dating rituals to our trips to the mall food court.
In “Big Grab,” Hoagland suggests language is taking on meanings that are less than they are. “The Big Grab,/so the concept of Big is quietly modified/to mean More Or Less Large, or Only Slightly/Less Big than Before.// Confucius said this would happen –/that language would be hijacked and twisted/” (page 5). This collection not only tackles the language changes our society faces and what those changes mean, but it also looks carefully at the world of celebrity in “Poor Britney Spears.”
Read the review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/07/u...
In “Big Grab,” Hoagland suggests language is taking on meanings that are less than they are. “The Big Grab,/so the concept of Big is quietly modified/to mean More Or Less Large, or Only Slightly/Less Big than Before.// Confucius said this would happen –/that language would be hijacked and twisted/” (page 5). This collection not only tackles the language changes our society faces and what those changes mean, but it also looks carefully at the world of celebrity in “Poor Britney Spears.”
Read the review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/07/u...
May 22, 2011
This was my first book of Hoagland's that I've read, although I've read his poems here and there over the years. One Goodreads reviewer said that he would give the first section four stars, but the rest of the book one star. I agree, sort of. The first section is the strongest by all means--it is the most memorable, imaginative, and wittiest. The rest of the book tapers a bit, but it's still good poetry by any standard. Others reviewers find some poems in this collection racist and sexist, but I think he's more nuanced than that. I respect that he opens up honestly about black-white relations (which I don't find racist) and that his view on the male libido is unrestrained. My favorite poems in this collection happen to be "Romantic Moment" and "Visitation," the latter poem doesn't have women as an audience in mind, I'll admit that. If anything, the book is worth the first section alone.
June 4, 2012
Are we Americans the unincorporated persons in the late honda dynasty?
Sometimes, I am like "show me Tony show me. Quit telling me stuff."
When he listens to me, it is gold. I see what he wants to tell me, like the 23446 problems of our society.
Looking back on the poems, they seem better, reading random lines and looking at the structure, as a whole, than I remember reading them a few hours ago.
I keep bouncing my stars from 3 to 4 back to 3 back to 4.
My biggest complaint with these poems is the cornyness of some of the poems. (see: The Loneliest Job in the World and Poor Britney Spears)
I seem to like the shorter poems more often.
Favorite poems:
I Have News For You
Expensive Hotel
Cement Truck
My Father's Vocabulary
Foghorn
Field Guide
Sentimental Education
Sometimes, I am like "show me Tony show me. Quit telling me stuff."
When he listens to me, it is gold. I see what he wants to tell me, like the 23446 problems of our society.
Looking back on the poems, they seem better, reading random lines and looking at the structure, as a whole, than I remember reading them a few hours ago.
I keep bouncing my stars from 3 to 4 back to 3 back to 4.
My biggest complaint with these poems is the cornyness of some of the poems. (see: The Loneliest Job in the World and Poor Britney Spears)
I seem to like the shorter poems more often.
Favorite poems:
I Have News For You
Expensive Hotel
Cement Truck
My Father's Vocabulary
Foghorn
Field Guide
Sentimental Education
July 16, 2014
From "Wild"
"In Late August when the streams dry up
and the high meadows turn parched and blond,
bears are squeezed out of the mountains
down into the valley of condos and housing developments.
All residents are therefore prohibited
from putting their garbage out early.
The penalty for disobedience will be
bears: large black furry fellows
drinking from your sprinkler system
rolling your trashcans down the lawn,
bashing through the screen door of the back porch to get their
first real taste of a spaghetti dinner,
while the family hides in the garage
and the wife dials 1-800-BEARS on her cell phone,
a number she just made up
in a burst of creative hysteria."
Tony Hoagland gets bear humor
"In Late August when the streams dry up
and the high meadows turn parched and blond,
bears are squeezed out of the mountains
down into the valley of condos and housing developments.
All residents are therefore prohibited
from putting their garbage out early.
The penalty for disobedience will be
bears: large black furry fellows
drinking from your sprinkler system
rolling your trashcans down the lawn,
bashing through the screen door of the back porch to get their
first real taste of a spaghetti dinner,
while the family hides in the garage
and the wife dials 1-800-BEARS on her cell phone,
a number she just made up
in a burst of creative hysteria."
Tony Hoagland gets bear humor
February 5, 2014
I own and have read a number of Tony Hoagland's books, but this is perhaps the best of his poetry collections. UNINCORPORATED PERSONS IN THE LATE HONDA DYNASTY offers one stunning poem after another, with startling insights connecting the profound to the ludicrous, our deeply-felt human nature caught in a web of crass commercialism and petty politics. The world of this book seems a perfect mirror of our distorted times, economically decadent and self-deluded, in deep and painful need, seeking the magic final "Voyage" that ends the book. As Hoagland says, description follows after narrative ends and is "a kind of love." This work is bracing and ultimately restorative.
September 2, 2014
In his collection,“Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty,” Tony Hoagland expertly illustrates the drastic consequences of existing in the toxic and hostile environment that is America today. While there are myriad articles and essays that explain in scientific detail the adverse effects of parabens on a woman’s hormonal system, how cell phones contribute to brain cancer, and the correlation between technology and depression, Hoagland’s poems show us the existential effects of modern living in emotional terms. Above all, these poems reappraise, as the term postmodern suggests, assumptions about culture, identity, history and language.
February 19, 2014
Hoagland is best when he talks about himself +- 1
e.g. http://www.poetrynet.org/month/archiv...
http://mattduckworthunderwater.blogsp...
ok and,
http://thebutcherblog.com/the-kind-of... (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/clash/lo...)
e.g. http://www.poetrynet.org/month/archiv...
http://mattduckworthunderwater.blogsp...
ok and,
http://thebutcherblog.com/the-kind-of... (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/c/clash/lo...)
May 28, 2010
Only two poems warranted bookmarks for me: "Big Grab" (the corn-chip poem) and "I Have News For You." The rest of the book was way too smug for my taste. I wanted to throw the book at certain moments during the afternoon as I was reading it. Still might.
June 7, 2010
Maybe not Hoagland's best...but still, I've not read anyone that writes with his quality of acerbic schmaltz, which is so often just what I need.
May 25, 2011
Hoagland's poetry switches between smart insight and bemoaning consumer culture. Shopping malls are too easy a target. Better are the poems that don't push so hard to be funny.
May 18, 2010
Wonderful poems on everyday topics. SUCH clever images.
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