Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God

In this sixth collection, Hoagland (Application for Release from the Dream) writes of America as though writing to an old friend, with an irritability that is both charming and deeply satisfying: “We have// everything we need,/ don’t know what the/ hell it is, don’t want it, won’t/ remind each other, refuse/ to listen.” He toggles effortlessly between lyric passages of striking natural and emotional beauty and the grouchy humor of such lines as “I will tell you this right now: Cincinnati has not been a great success for me.” Throughout, Hoagland’s work is refreshingly accessible without compromising sophistication or a complexity of thought. In his opening poem, he unflinchingly relates his particular flaws: “My ferocious love, and how it repeatedly is trapped/ inside my fear of being sentimental;// my need to control even the kindness of the world,/ rejecting gifts for which I am not prepared.” Hoagland is both a wry participant in and keen observer of America in “the twilight of the white male dinosaur,” a land that is filled with a profusion of beauty that gets burned through “like it was/ wrapping paper.” Between headlines, unavoidable mortality, and the crush of consumerism, Hoagland focuses his work in the brief “moments when the mind unclouds/ and old injuries are forgiven.” (June)