Full Description
America's Tony Hoagland (1953-2018) was known for provocative poems which interrogate human nature and contemporary culture with an intimate and wild urgency, located somewhere between outrage, stand-up comedy, and grief. The poems in his final collection Turn Up the Ocean examine with an unflinching eye and mordant humour the reality of living and dying in a time and culture that conspire to erase our inner lives.
Hoagland's signature wit and unparalleled observations take in long-standing injustices, the atrocities of American empire and consumerism, and our continuing habit of looking away. In these poems, perseverance depends on a gymnastics of scepticism and comedy, a dogged quest for authentic connection, and the consolations of the natural world. Turn Up the Ocean is a remarkable and moving collection, a fitting testament to Hoagland's devotion to the capaciousness and art of poetry.
Tony Hoagland's poems poke and provoke at the same time as they entertain and delight. He was American poetry's hilarious 'high priest of irony', a wisecracker and a risk-taker whose disarming humour, self-scathing and tenderness are all fuelled by an aggressive moral intelligence. He pushed the poem not just to its limits but over the edge.
Contents
Bible All Out of Order 3
Gorgon 5
Immersion 7
Disclosure Agreement 9
Botany 11
Why I Like the Hospital 13
Squad Car Light 15
Turn Up the Ocean 17
The Reason He Brought His Gun to School: A Blues 19
Butter 21
Diagnosis 23
Nature Is Strong 25
Illness and Literature 27
"On a Scale of 1-10," Said the Nurse, "How Would You Rate Your Pain Today?" 28
Bandage 30
American Story 32
Ode to the West Wind 35
How the Old Poetry Happened 36
I Don't Ask What You're Thinking 38
Causes of Death 40
Virginia Woolf 42
Four Beginnings for an Apocalyptic Novel of Manners 44
The Power of Traffic 46
Weather of Pain 48
Autumn 50
On Why I Must Decline to Receive the Prayers You Say You Are Constantly Sending 51
Mistaken Identity Librarian Syndrome 53
Landscape without Jason 55
Walk 56
Success 57
Dante's Bar and Grill 59
King of the Night 61
Siberia 62
Economica 64
The Decline of the Roman Empire 65
Cuisine 66
The Interfaith Chapel Is in the South Terminal 68
Homework 70
Reading While Sick in the Middle of the Night 71
Harbor 72
Incompletion 73
Sunday at the Mall 74
Among the Intellectuals 76
In the Beautiful Rain 77
Peaceful Transition 79
Afterword by Kathleen Lee 83
