Tony Hoagland's collection of home-- collections of poems
include Donkey Gospel, which received the James Laughlin
award in 1998, Sweet Ruin chosen by Donald Justice for the 1992
Brittingham prize in poetry, and What Narcissism Means To Me,
published by Graywolf Press last year.
He's been the recipient of two grants
from the National Endowment for the Arts
and a fellowship to the prestigious Provincetown Fine
Arts Work Center.
He currently teaches in the MFA program
at Warren Wilson College and in the graduate writing program
at the University of Houston.
So many poets use poems to take a reader outside of reality,
but Tony Hoagland's poems seem to shove the reader face-first
back into reality, and often into a place--
into a piece of humanity the reader may have overlooked.
In other words, nothing is ever safe from scrutiny in a Tony
Hoagland poem, especially his own experiences
with results that are often as surprising and eye-opening,
painful and funny as they are true.
Further, the observations made by and within his poems
expose the coexisting dualities present in our lives,
exploring moments at once inspired and shameful,
brilliant and dim, or happy and sad.
For this reason, a reader is always kept on his or her toes,
both as a reader and as a person.
Please give a warm welcome back to Tony Hoagland.
[APPLAUSE]