Twenty Poems That Could Save America and Other Essays

November 1, 2014
Nearly every year, a new primer on American poetics attempts to diagnose the state of contemporary verse, each time with a different agenda and purpose. In this iteration, accomplished poet Hoagland articulates his concern that poetry in the U.S. has failed to transfigure the culture because it exhibits a conspicuous lack of adulthood. It may sound like an avuncular complaint, but Hoagland makes clear his affinity for subversion and irreverence in smart passages on idiom and diction that are packed with excerpts and explication of a wide range of poets, from Rainer Maria Rilke and Wallace Stevens to Lucie Brock-Broido and Marianne Moore. Hoagland insists the best poetry can play with language, sound, and subject matter, but it must always emphasize sustained thought, emotional intensity, and ethical agency, traits that can save poetry from utter irrelevance. Hoagland defends this thesis most convincingly in longer chapters he devotes to the lasting influence of poets Dean Young, Sharon Olds, and Robert Bly. A great read for poets and poetry lovers and a rejuvenating call to reimagine literary priorities.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)