“Few [poets] deliver more pure pleasure. [Hoagland’s]
erudite comic poems are backloaded with heartache and longing, and they
function, emotionally, like improvised explosive devices: the pain comes at you
from the cruelest angles, on the sunniest of days. . . . Listen up, cats: This
plain, unincorporated, free-range American poet is one you’ll want to know
about.”
THE INIMITABLE TONY HOAGLAND RETURNS WITH HIS FIRST FULL-LENGTH
POETRY COLLECTION IN SEVEN YEARS Funny, poignant, and intimate new
work from the award-winning author of Donkey
Gospel and What Narcissism Means to
Me
In Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, Tony
Hoagland continues his witty and poignant unraveling of modern American life,
sounding out the harmonic connections between what we have been given, how it
makes us feel, and how to speak of it. Funny, combative, intimate, and public,
these poems advocate that we must fight for clarity and remain unincorporated. “Hoagland’s poems. . . are so fully alive to the rich, dark
depths of their grumpiness that they constantly threaten, against their
author’s gimlet-eyed better judgment, to become beautiful.”
—JOEL BROUWER, THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“And just like that—because ‘you want[ed] to talk about
America,’ after all—a cement truck joins the playground swing, a corn-chip
factory, Britney Spears, the DC sniper, jazz music, and an amazing assortment
of other ingredients, not the least of which is Jimmy’s Wok and Roll
American-Chinese Gourmet Emporium, all of which divine and define the brilliant
and delightful landscape of Hoagland’s world. . . . [He] takes great risks in
his unsettling juxtaposition of diction and his curiously diverse subject
matter, and he is as ready to express confusion, outrage, and anger as he is to
display outlandish humor.”
—LIBRARY JOURNAL, starred review
“Hoagland has much in common with the popular Billy
Collins—a sharp, if deadpan, wit; accessible, almost prosey lines; a penchant
for self-consciously drawing the reader’s attention to the artifice of the
poem—but with a more musically attuned ear and a darker outlook. . . . At his
best, Hoagland is capable of showing us how truly marvelous ‘our marvelous
punishment’ can be.”
