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Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems |  | Author: Tony Hoagland
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $8.41
as of 9/3/2010 17:35 CDT details
You Save: $6.59 (44%)
Seller: pbshopus
Rating:  7 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 100
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4
ISBN: 1555975496
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9781555975494
Publication Date: February 2, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| • | ISBN13: 9781555975494 | | • | Condition: New | | • | Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed |
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Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poems August 9, 2010
phil meehan
I took the newly purchased "Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty:Poems" to a poet friend in convalescence. Another many married poet came to pay his respects. I read a few of Tony Hoagland's poems.
Their therapeutic value was immediate and healing in so many ways. "In Praise of Our Friends Divorce" is a brilliantly sustained blessing on the joys of a new life. I ordered another copy.
 America's Mid-Life Crisis May 2, 2010
Melissa Slachetka (Minneapolis, MN)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty is a colorful and contradictory view of America. The poems are a filled with musings on the century we are living in and the dynamics of love and life.
Tony Hoagland's verses seem to ask if we are just bold adventurers claiming a new democratic royalty or is our empire full of rust spots and loud mufflers as is cruises through a country covered in peeling billboards and half-drunk soda cans and is there any difference?
There is nice coherence to this book of poetry. Intended or not, the table of contents even reads like a list poem, where each title conveys a conversation of emotions set in stanzas. This book has unique potential, from the catchy title to the spirited verses.
Still, there is awkwardness in Hoagland's prose. It isn't clumsy in language or structure, but in its ability to express. Using broad phrases like "for a while the problem got very clear, and the clarity constituted a kind of relief, as if the problem had withdrawn. . . But after a while the clarity began to fade" which don't actually say much of anything are a major hazard. Something is missing in this vagueness and it feels like we are left out of a secret joke known only to the writer, making it hard for the reader to fully commit to the work and get lost in the poet's world.
Another detractor is when the author addresses the poem directly, as in the following bits: "they are excited to be entering the poem" and "I wanted to get the cement truck into the poem" or "I liked the idea of my poem having room inside." This self-praising just feels unnecessary. The truth is - it seems like Hoagland, himself, is working through a mid-life crisis.
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty is an introspective look at ourselves and the country we live in. Hoagland's home-spun soliloquies on American life are both clever and pensive.
If I Didn't Already Know Him, I'd Have to Find Him April 19, 2010
John Michael Albert (Dover NH)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I could just kick myself. I lived in Houston for 30 years, then moved to New Hampshire, THEN discovered that Tony Hoagland was teaching at the University of Houston, my former employer. If I didn't already know about Tony Hoagland, I'd have to find him. His writing is the sort of good therapy that every writer needs. He's a superb craftsman but never beats his readers over the head with it. Instead, his overall message is more, "Do your best then kick back. Don't beat yourself up; you can rely on the world to do that for you. Really." What is more, he's the chief protagonist of a poetic theory I've formulated that simply reads: Nothing Is Ordinary. There are poems here called "Food Court," "Poor Britney Spears," "My Father's Vocabulary," "The Story of White People," "Requests for Toy Piano," and "The Allegory of the Temp Agency." Everything is fair game; and everything is metaphorically nutritious. I especially love his "guy" poems, a prime example being "Address to the Beloved." Here we have an author who loves to listen to and understands the process of jazz, riffing on the simple exasperation from his sweetie, "get real," and wandering off into the guy-labyrinth of "I don't know what you mean but I'm willing to try everything until I stumble on it." If you haven't started collecting his books and dog-earring the hell out of them, start with this one.
A clear eyed view of america March 16, 2010
Harsh Desai (mumbai, maharashtra, IN)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Tony hoagland has a clear eyed view of america which enables him to look below the surface of america to its beating heart-one image he uses of a crashed plane but generally the images are gentler like what he sees in a visit to a grocery store-there are two other aspects of the poems that i noticed one is that he writes simply though that is sometimes deceptive and the tension in many poems the element of surprise a perfect moment is juxtaposed with terminal cancer in one moment which takes you through the gamut- i immidiately ordered his earliar books harsh desai
New and vintage poems to blow you away March 9, 2010
Adair Rowland (Amesbury, MA USA)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Ever since discovering "What Narcissism Means to Me" in 2004, I've hungered for the "Tony take" on everything from millennial materialism to awakening from illness. Very personal, very social, uncanny marksmanship in his imagery, Hoagland makes me remember what poetry can do beyond any other medium. Open this collection anywhere, read aloud, and watch if you don't say "Whoa!" as what just happened sinks in.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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