My review was originally written to appear in Poetry London a couple of years ago. What does it mean? But, Antaeus-like, Hoagland always keeps his feet firmly on the ground.
His language is accordingly direct, chatty, engaging, man to man not afraid to be masculine , eschewing the hyper-economy of certain poetries. His verse forms are very free. What better way to spend 20 minutes than to listen to this recent reading given by Tony Hoagland at Ledbury Poetry Festival:. This is the third in the series of reviews I am posting over the next two months of the 5 collections chosen for the Forward Prizes Felix Dennis award for best First Collection. Click on this link to access all 5 of my reviews of the shortlisted books eventual winner Ocean Vuong , here for my reviews of the shortlisted books eventual winner Tiphanie Yanique , here for my reviews of the shortlisted books eventual winner Mona Arshi.
It is carefully placed Public Library and dated Section 1 goes some way in the bildungsroman direction. Scott does not simplify either the allure or the destructiveness of the erotic.
In two poems, Scott himself raises questions of authenticity. Poems of witness also in the sense of the often traumatic nature of much of the material. One of the unassailable liberties of the poet is to make things up. Whitman again presides in the epigraph and in the free-wheeling, long-lined, detail-listing paean to the present, past and future of Soho itself. The historical element takes in a discussion of the Warren Cup in the British Museum but is never far from subjective and exclamatory moments too.
This is the fourth in the series of reviews I have been posting over the summer months of the 5 collections chosen for the Forward Prizes Felix Dennis award for best First Collection. Click on these links to access all 5 of my reviews of the shortlisted books eventual winner Tiphanie Yanique and all 5 of my reviews of the shortlisted books eventual winner Mona Arshi.
