Like a Man Gone Mad: Poems in a New Century

by Samuel Hazo

Hazo, National Book Award finalist and former State Poet of Pennsylvania, transports the reader with poems of both lament and celebration in his sensual new collection. Like a Man Gone Mad features much of the spare yet precise imagery of his earlier work. Searing portraits, a deft use of allegorical language, and a wry sense of humor are all signatures of Hazo’s unique voice.

Taking up the theme of time, the poems carry the reader back and forth through personal and historical time, offering glimpses of a wide range of figures, from Pascal and Heraclitus to John F. Kennedy and Clark Gable. From each vantage point, Hazo meditates on themes of vitality and longevity, legacy and oblivion, and the enduring folly of both the individual and society. Accessible and eminently readable, the poems in Like a Man Gone Mad embody a rich intellectual and emotional curiosity.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Hardcover

First published November 15, 2010

About the author

Samuel Hazo is the director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, where he is also McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University. His books include The Rest Is Prose, As They Sail, Stills, and This Part of the World, the latter two published by Syracuse University Press. His translations include Nadia Tueni’s Lebanon: Twenty Poems for One Love

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of poems really started out well. I enjoyed his poems in the first chapter, but sadly, it gradually got more dull, incoherent, rambling, pointless, and not as interesting or entertaining as the chapters went on.

The first chapter's poems were really significant, poignant, and meaningful; especially while also reading "When Breath Becomes Air" at the same time. Sadly this collection just trails off after that. I really should have finished this yesterday, but just couldn't be bothered reading the last three pages until today.

[Zoë Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Even these words

have predecessors by the millions

from my very hand, but still

I write them as the first

and final words I’ll write."

I admit I was disappointed with Like a Man Gone Mad: Poems in a New Century, the latest collection by Samuel Hazo. It's not that I had ever read Hazo before, so I had no expectations going in. However the first dozen or so poems made me think this was going to be an incredible book and I had discovered a brilliant poet. Somewhere however, the brilliance gets lost to observation instead of poetry, to structured political statements instead of passionate outbursts. Hazo is clearly intelligent, but I don't read poetry for intelligence- I read it for genius. Although the beginning of the collection Like a Man Gone Mad soars, the majority of the poems simply fall flat.


Ironically where Hazo excels are in the poems regarding the art of writing poetry which comprise the first section of the book "Briefly in Attendence". His strength is epitomized by the very first poem in the collection "To The Next Poem", where he writes to the poem as if it were a living breathing organism, a comparison I find powerful. However Hazo often excludes himself from his own poetry in a way that feels cold and impersonal. For example, "Kings of Swing" reads more like a list of observations- something Hazo actually mocks Walt Whitman for- as well as a history of jazz, than a poem. There is also the occasional cliche, in "Say Cheese" Hazo mentions the idea that "being photographed/ permitted the photographer to steal/ your soul" a concept I've heard a few too many times for it to be a poignant way to end a poem. In section 7- "In The Name of Candor" Hazo gets political, with poems like "Tell it to the Marines" where he writes that "half the governments / on earth are run by murderers, / elected or imposed" it seems like an attempt at controversial political statements more than actual poetry. So although Like a Man Gone Mad is a collection with potential it feels like Hazo is still needs to find a balance in his attempt to capture both history and the emotion behind it. **