In it what is in it

Tony Hoagland -- a poet for the times

few days ago at the library I picked up the unusually named, "Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty". A great discovery! Turned out to be Tony Hoagland's fourth full-length poetry collection and a stunner. Clear, witty, insightful poems perfectly tuned to today's America -- and I had never even heard of the guy! My fault, since Tony Hoagland's work has appeared in the full range of magazines where clever poetry first appears: American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Agni, Ploughshares and the like. The fellow is even the recipient of two fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim and the National Endowment for the Arts. His last collection, "What Narcissism Means To Me: Poems", was the finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award. I hope "Honda" wins it for him this time.

Piet Hein's Grooks

ARS BREVIS: There is/one art,/no more,/no less:/to do/all things/with art-/lessness

Piet Hein died in 1996 at the ripe age of 91. A Danish scientist and mathematician who "played mental ping-pong with Neils Bohr" (!) he is better known as the brilliant inventor of "grooks". These are pithy, insightful and brief poems that Piet invented to get around the censors in World War II. They went on to become Denmark's much-beloved contribution to the world of letters. Twenty volumes of grooks were published, but were out of print until a 2-volume 'collected works' was published in Denmark in 2002. I paid $1.50 for the copy I show on the left. (Yes, it was a long time ago :)). It is listed at $93.43 'new' on Amazon, showing that Piet Hein has aged well.

Visit Terry Stewart's website page Grooks by Piet Hein to get a great sampling of his work. Here are a few that I like: