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  #1  
Unread 10-24-2018, 03:33 PM
Cally Conan-Davies Cally Conan-Davies is offline
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Default Tony Hoagland

With great sadness . . .

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/o...land-dead.html

He wrote this piece only last month: https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issue...cism-is-cancer
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  #2  
Unread 10-24-2018, 04:13 PM
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Catherine Chandler Catherine Chandler is offline
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Everyone should read that article in its entirety.
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Unread 10-24-2018, 06:44 PM
Jim Moonan Jim Moonan is offline
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x
I did and I'm dumbfounded.
Thank you Cally, thank you Catherine, thank you Tony Hoagland. I am saddened, yes. But, strangely, I feel buoyed after reading his final essay.

So there it is.
x
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Unread 10-24-2018, 06:44 PM
Susan McLean Susan McLean is offline
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I am very sorry to hear this. Thanks, Cally, for the link to the article. I agree with Cathy that it is well worth reading. I had just finished reading Hoagland's last two poetry books. Since he talks about his illness in his poems, I was worried that Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God might be his last book. He is one of the few poets whose poems often make me laugh out loud, but not because they are light verse. They are often quite serious about difficult subjects, but the honesty of the voice is often startling in a way that makes me laugh with recognition. He seems unusually resistant to the need to make himself look good in his poems, and more than happy to laugh at himself. I would have liked to hear him read.

Susan
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Unread 10-24-2018, 06:52 PM
Cally Conan-Davies Cally Conan-Davies is offline
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Exactly how I feel, Susan. Well said. And Catherine, and Jim.

Susan, did you play the video of him reading in his obituary in the NYT? It's given me a big laugh and a lot of joy this morning. I have some very big reasons to be very grateful for the life of Tony Hoagland. I so wish we could have had more of him, but what we got is fabulous.
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Unread 10-24-2018, 08:31 PM
David Rosenthal David Rosenthal is offline
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I posted a link to this recently in the Personal Canon thread. It is one of my all time favorite poems:



I HAVE NEWS FOR YOU by Tony Hoagland

There are people who do not see a broken playground swing
as a symbol of ruined childhood

and there are people who don’t interpret the behavior
of a fly in a motel room as a mocking representation of their thought process.

There are people who don’t walk past an empty swimming pool
and think about past pleasures unrecoverable

and then stand there blocking the sidewalk for other pedestrians.
I have read about a town somewhere in California where human beings

do not send their sinuous feeder roots
deep into the potting soil of others’ emotional lives

as if they were greedy six-year-olds
sucking the last half-inch of milkshake up through a noisy straw;

and other persons in the Midwest who can kiss without
debating the imperialist baggage of heterosexuality.

Do you see that creamy, lemon-yellow moon?
There are some people, unlike me and you,

who do not yearn after fame or love or quantities of money as
unattainable as that moon;
thus, they do not later
have to waste more time
defaming the object of their former ardor.

Or consequently run and crucify themselves
in some solitary midnight Starbucks Golgotha.

I have news for you—
there are people who get up in the morning and cross a room

and open a window to let the sweet breeze in
and let it touch them all over their faces and bodies.



David R.
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  #7  
Unread 10-25-2018, 01:49 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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I think he was a genius.
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  #8  
Unread 10-25-2018, 04:42 PM
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Michael F Michael F is offline
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David R, that poem is SO good. Thanks.
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  #9  
Unread 10-25-2018, 07:40 PM
John Riley John Riley is online now
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Thank you, David, for that poem.
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  #10  
Unread 11-16-2018, 04:43 PM
James Brancheau James Brancheau is offline
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Sorry, in a way, to bump this up. Most or everyone who knows him will know the poem I link here. He's been a pretty big influence on me, and I guess I can't help myself.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poe...lor-of-the-sky
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