Remembering Poet Tony Hoagland

Graywolf Press poet Tony Hoagland (1953–2018) succumbed to pancreatic cancer earlier this week, and to help commemorate his life in letters, we’ve compiled an Edelweiss collection of his poetry, including WHAT NARCISSISM MEANS TO ME, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and his most recent collection, PRIEST TURNED THERAPIST TREATS FEAR OF GOD.

Tony Hoagland’s poems interrogate human nature and contemporary culture with an intimate and wild urgency, located somewhere between outrage, stand-up comedy, and grief.

“Few [poets] deliver more pure pleasure. His erudite comic poems are backloaded with heartache and longing, and they function, emotionally, like improvised explosive devices.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“When we wake up each morning, though, we have to live in the banal folly (and comfort) of capitalism today, and we need to live as if it is still possible to make moral and compassionate choices. Tony Hoagland writes poetry for that part of our lives.”      —Mark Halliday, Pleiades