Tony Hoagland's poems sparkle with effervescence, a jujitsu cleverness -- a "wise-guy" aesthetic. Through unexpected subjects ranging from the boy who speaks only in "Kung Fu" dialogue, to a man visiting a lesbian bar, Hoagland gives a sense of finally being able to say the truth about the credentials of manhood.

Sweet Ruin (Brittingham Prize in Poetry)

Literature & Fiction

Hoagland, Tony

Poetry

University of Wisconsin Press

An award-winning poet, teacher, and “champion of poetry” (Neil Genzlinger, New York Times) demystifies the elusive element of voice.
In this accessible and distilled craft guide, acclaimed poet Tony Hoagland approaches poetry through the frame of poetic voice, that mysterious connective element that binds the speaker and reader together. In short, essayistic chapters and an appendix of thirty stimulating exercises, The Art of Voice explores the myriad ways to create a distinctive poetic voice, including vernacular, authoritative statement, speech register, tone-shifting, and using secondary voices. “Rich with lively examples” (New York Times Book Review), The Art of Voice provides a compelling introduction to contemporary poetry and an invaluable guide for any practicing writer.

The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice

Essays & Correspondence

W.W.Norton&Company

The Underground Poetry Metro Transportation System for Souls collects 16 essays by late Tony Hoagland. Gathered by Hoagland himself into a volume for the Poets on Poetry series, these pieces grapple with an expansive range of poetic and cultural concerns-and the surprising and necessary knowledge to be found where they cross paths. His trademark humor and irony, at once approachable, thoughtful, and sophisticated, lead the way toward clear-eyed, sometimes difficult, considerations of contemporary American culture. Through his curiosity, he elevates the seemingly quotidian into a profound subject worthy of close consideration. Hoagland's generosity of spirit imbues his work with empathy for experiences beyond his own, and his honesty allows him to turn a critical eye on himself and to acknowledge the limits of his understanding. This collection will be rewarding not just for readers of contemporary poetry, but for anyone who wants to step back, take a look at our American reality, and know we'll be okay.

The Underground Poetry Metro Transportation System for Souls: Essays on the Cultural Life of Poetry (Poets On Poetry)

History & Criticism

University of Michigan Press

Once more the anthropologist of our American scene brings us his reports from the present. With a ruthless gaze, Tony Hoagland attends to all the details of modern frailty and human joy. "What is wrong with you?" he asks of "His Majesty Mr.-Boombox-In-My-Jeep" driving the beach road at 2 AM. What is wrong with all of us? these poems want to know and set off finding out. Don't Tell Anyone is a chronicle of life, love, marriage, sex and shopping as only Tony Hoagland is able to render such things. His poems speak conversationally as if your good friend is telling you a story, but there is great wit and inventiveness behind each of them. Don't tell anyone -- tell everyone about these poems.

Don't Tell Anyone (The Hollyridge Press Chapbook Series)

Hollyridge Press

An award-winning poet, teacher, and “champion of poetry” (New York Times) demystifies the elusive element of voice.
In this accessible and distilled craft guide, acclaimed poet Tony Hoagland approaches poetry through the frame of poetic voice, that mysterious connective element that binds the speaker and reader together. A poem strong in the dimension of voice is an animate thing of shifting balances, tones, and temperatures, by turns confiding, vulgar, bossy, or cunning―but above all, alive.
The twelve short chapters of The Art of Voice explore ways to create a distinctive poetic voice, including vernacular, authoritative statement, material imagination, speech register, tone-shifting, and using secondary voices as an enriching source of texture in the poem. A comprehensive appendix contains thirty stimulating models and exercises that will help poets cultivate their craft. Mining his personal experience as a poet and analyzing a wide range of examples from Catullus to Marie Howe, Hoagland provides a lively introduction to contemporary poetry and an invaluable guide for any practicing writer.

Winner of the 1997 James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets
In Donkey Gospel, his second collection of poems, Hoagland's generous effervescence and a jujitsu cleverness sparkle through line after line confronting negotiation and compromise, gender and culture, sex and rock music, sons and lovers, truth and beauty, and so forth. From the boy who speaks only in "Kung Fu" dialogue to the guy who visits a lesbian bar and sees his mother, this often funny and always thoughtful book of poems offers fresh, surprisingly frank meditations on the credentials for contemporary manhood.

Donkey Gospel: Poems

Graywolf Press

This wonderful book: Donkey Gospel, by Tony Hoagland is a book poems. Winner of the 1997 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American poets.

An eagerly awaited new collection of poems by contemporary favorite Tony Hoagland, author of Donkey Gospel
How did I come to believe in a government called Tony Hoagland? With an economy based on flattery and self-protection? and a sewage system of selective forgetting? and an extensive history of broken promises? --from "Argentina"
In What Narcissism Means to Me, award-winning poet Tony Hoagland levels his particular brand of acute irony not only on the personal life, but also on some provinces of American culture. In playful narratives, lyrical outbursts, and overheard conversations, Hoagland cruises the milieu, exploring the spiritual vacancies of American satisfaction. With humor, rich tonal complexity, and aggressive moral intelligence, these poems bring pity to our folly and celebrate our resilience.

What Narcissism Means to Me: Poems

The anticipated first collection of essays by celebrated poet Tony Hoagland, author of What Narcissism Means to Me
 Meanness, the very thing that is unforgivable in human social life, in poetry is thrilling and valuable. Why? Because the willingness to be offensive sets free the ruthless observer in all of us, the spiteful perceptive angel who sees and tells, unimpeded by nicety or second thoughts. There is truth-telling, and more, in meanness. ―from "Negative Capability: How to Talk Mean and Influence People"
Tony Hoagland has won The Poetry Foundation's Mark Twain Award, recognizing a poet's contribution to humor in American poetry, and also the Folger Shakespeare Library's O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize, the only major award that honors a poet's excellence in teaching. Real Sofistikashun, from the title onward, uses Hoagland's signature abilities to entertain and instruct as he forages through central questions about how poems behave and how they are made.
In these taut, illuminating essays, Hoagland explores aspects of poetic craft―metaphor, tone, rhetorical and compositional strategies―with the vigorous, conversational style less of the scholar than of the serious enthusiast and practitioner. Real Sofistikashun is an exciting, humorous, and provocative collection of essays, as pleasurable a book as it is useful.

Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft

Reference

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.

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoagland, Tony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Hoagland, Tony

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hoagland, Tony. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Sweet Ruin (Brittingham Prize in Poetry)

The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice

The Underground Poetry Metro Transportation System for Souls: Essays on the Cultural Life of Poetry (Poets On Poetry)

Don't Tell Anyone (The Hollyridge Press Chapbook Series)

The Art of Voice: Poetic Principles and Practice

Donkey Gospel: Poems

Donkey Gospel: Poems

What Narcissism Means to Me: Poems

Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft

Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems