Acrimony

by Michael Hofmann

Hardcover with jacket in very good condition. First edition. Pages are tanned. Text is clear throughout. HCW

Genres: Poetry

79 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Michael Hofmann is a German-born, British-educated poet and translator. He is the author of two books of essays and five books of poems, most recently One Lark, One Horse. Among his translations are plays by Bertolt Brecht and Patrick Süskind; the selected poems of Durs Grünbein and Gottfried Benn; and novels and stories by, among others, Franz Kafka; Peter Stamm; his father, Gert Hofmann; and fourteen books by Joseph Roth. He has translated several books for NYRB Classics, including Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, Jakob Wassermann’s My Marriage, and Gert Ledig’s Stalin Front, Kurt Tucholsky’s Castle Gripsholm, and edited The Voyage That Never Ends, an anthology of writing by Malcolm Lowry. He teaches in the English Department at the University of Florida.

He is the son of German novelist Gert Hofmann (1931-1993).

Reviews

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm trying to rediscover poetry and be less afraid of it so I grabbed this collection at a second hand bookfare this week. This is a new to me poet, and probably my first review of a book of poetry.
The first half of this collection focuses on the poet's wife, London and politics, the poems are bleak - poems which start off as love poems and them cry the dissatisfaction of love and sex, depictions of a London of poverty and hookers on every street corner and criticisms of the impact of political decisions on people's day to day lives. There were few poems in this first part which I liked/connected with: Ancient Evenings, Nighthawks and Albion Market. Part two took a different pathway presenting a bitter view of his broken relationship with his father, a German playwright and novelist. These poems were grittier (the first ones tried to be but it felt over done), more raw and emotional. It was this second half of the book which I enjoyed reading, the poems created images and emotions which the first half often failed to do.

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 1 out of 5]

absolutely did not work for me

[Jacob biscuits · Rating 5 out of 5]

These were very good poems, very very strong. A problem may be that they gave the impression of being very open and confessional but also were pretty obscure sometimes. But this didn’t really upset me coz it is poetry after all

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Drastic honesty" is right.

[Mark Ward]

Nope. Nope. Nope.