Famed ‘poet of risk’ fused humour with edgy insights
Tony Hoagland, a prizewinning poet admired for his candour and sharp, offbeat humour, has died at age 64.
Jeff Shotts, executive editor of Graywolf Press, said Hoagland died Tuesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The cause was pancreatic cancer.
Born in Fort Bragg, N.C., Hoagland published several works of poetry and essays about poetry. The titles helped sum up his take on life: Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, Application for Release from the Dream and Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God, which came out in June. Three of his books had been released since 2015.
“It was a long battle with cancer, and he cheated it a couple of times,” Shotts said. “He was very productive near the end and I think the work helped keep him alive.”
His style could be offhand and unpredictable. In the poem A Color of the Sky, his thoughts wander from love and sex to a dogwood tree between a police station and liquor store that is “losing its mind.”
Hoagland was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for his 2003 collection What Narcissism Means to Me, and his other honours included the Jackson Prize, given to poets of “exceptional talent” who deserve greater attention. Prize judges called him a “poet of risk.”
“He risks wild laughter in poems that are totally heartfelt,” the citation read, “poems you want to read out loud to anyone who needs to know the score and even more so to those who think they know the score.”
Hoagland attended several colleges and received an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona. He taught writing at the University of Houston and at Warren Wilson College outside of Asheville, North Carolina. He is survived by his wife, the writer Kathleen Lee, and a brother, Christopher.
The poet reflected on mortality in the recent poem I Have Good News, in which he confides his feelings about being sick for “the last time.”
“You will begin to see the plants and flowers of your youth,
And they will look as new to you as they did back then —
little lavender bouquets arranged in solar systems
delicate beyond your comprehension ...”
It was a long battle with cancer ... He was very productive near the end and I think the work helped keep him alive.