These poems present a large worldly experience, both spontaneously joyous and frankly tragic. These poems by Eric Hoffman range over their subject matter with the constant homage of their close attention.
Nothing is beneath their notice.
From the title poem s meditation of a fatal highway accident to such monologues and narratives as Dead Wolf on a Lonely Road and The Big Nowhere, many of the poems are concerned with travel, flight, return, the self defined in relation to landscape. With this collection Hoffman stakes a claim to that legacy. In this first book of poems, Eric Hoffman registers himself as a poet who has an ear for the American west, its spiritual whisper buried deeply in the bedrock of the Midwest. The shock of settlement, of machines, and of people yearning for a home have built a highway through his heart, a thick artery of compassion. Hoffman salvages what is mortal, preserves the music gone unheard and christens the Big Nowhere.