Lynn Hoffman's Like Fire Catching Wind is a collection of poetry that has received acclaim from all quarters. Sue Ellen Thompson says, "The settings for the poems in Like Fire Catching Wind range from the kitchen stove to the slopes of the Andes, and in between lie stories about what it means to be a wife, a mother, a daughter, and the granddaughter of Italian immigrants. Surprises abound read 'Small Talk' and 'The Gift' as do humor, tenderness, and awe. Lynn Hoffman's poems remind us that the ordinary is as deserving of poetry as the extraorrdinary, that it is only by listening closely to the conversations around us that we can hear our humanity speak." Doug Anderson writes that "Lynn Hoffman's poems celebrate the hot ingot of life in what most people mistake as the ordinary a hotdog vendor infused with Aphrodite, an insectival soldier healing from trauma in a Kafka cage of high tech medicine you know, the things you think you see, but don't quite? She's got vision and she'll help you see. Keep this book close." And Major Jackson has this to say: "Each poem in Lynn Hoffman's Like Fire Catching Wind makes observation and rememory a ritual of language and reverence. Her poetry stems from the shimmering, mystified world of our quotidian lives, yet is reconstituted with feeling and stabilized by her imaginative powers until we, ourselves, are reborn anew and human." Lynn Hoffman's writing has been shaped by many inspiring teachers, including Anne Greene at Wesleyan University; Arthur Feinsod at Trinity College; and Steve Straight at Manchester Community College, who introduced her to the art and craft of poetry. Writing has been in her blood from early on. As she says, "Writing is my obsession, though poetry is a relatively new venture, which makes it all the more ironic that my first and only book is a collection of poems. I wondered if I would live long enough to see one of my books in print. So did my parents and siblings. My children just gave up on me. No more wondering. "I write because I cannot not write plays, YA novels, and short fiction as well as poems. I don't have rituals or a special room (although I do prefer a Uni-ball Vision Elite Fine Point with blue-black ink). I write at the dining room table, in the thick of family activity, for a few hours after dinner. I love the surprises, the revelations, the meditations, the dialogues, and the debates that writing provokes. "To support my writing habit, I am the Academic Advisor and Outreach Coordinator for the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts, a CREC magnet high school in Hartford, Connecticut. The artistry of my colleagues and the raw talent of our students, combined with my community of family and friends, is the wellspring for my writing." Click here to read some sample poems. |
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BOOK STATISTICS ISBN: 978-0-9762091-8-8
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THE OLD COUNTRY ALWAYS SITS AT HER TABLE For my father In the garden, she picks plum tomatoes, “Mangia,” she says, “Mangia!” she says again, “Marry a nice Italian boy,” she says, |
IN SUMMER
The honeysuckle |
THE GIFT
for Anton At the escalators Later, I learn He finds me at the checkout. I look at him |
THE HOT DOG VENDOR
Beware! |
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