Product Description

Winner of the 2005 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. Grace is John Hodgen's third book of poetry. He is a poet of extreme contrasts, offering us the dregs of despair, yet instantly recalling hope in the beauty of nature or in a moment in time when all is right, when we realize grace. In "For the Leapers" the narrator relates, "We will fall past the angels, / we will fall from such height, / our tears will lift up from our eyes. / We will fall straight through hell. / And then we will rise." Hodgen's poems roam through history, religion, man-made disasters, baseball, pop culture, and Wal-Marts, on paths that come full circle with remarkable completeness, maturity, and dexterity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1104525 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-07
• Released on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

Review

From the Back Cover
"The poems in Grace are energetic and intelligent. At their best, they manifest the kind of eloquence and spaciousness in the poetry by Walt Whitman and C. K. Williams. Here the poet shows us a world shaded by darkness and fractured by violence, but not devoid of the light of hope and dream. This is a voice that speaks directly from the heart." --Ha Jin

"John Hodgen's Grace presents an operatic cast that includes Abraham Lincoln, the poet's family, Harpo Marx, Boris Karloff, Boxcar Willie, and Garbo-to name a few-and a wide range of settings from Fenway Park in Boston, to Florence and Rome, to 'backwoods Tennessee' and the 'Coolawhatchie Blimpie Gas n' Go.' Through lively diction and skillful work with form, Hodgen turns zaniness to tenderness; loneliness to joy. This surprising, welcome book of poems is full of thanksgiving, charm, and much good grace." --Maggie Anderson

"John Hodgen's beautiful book is a reminder that the elegiac exists not to invoke sadness, but to open and, finally, celebrate our shared experience of the great depth of feeling loss reveals in us. Few poets have rung this bell with the silver and loving precision to be found in Grace. Poem after poem is so charged with affectionate clarity that the whole book breaks, like a wave, toward a kind of atonement." --Christopher Howell

"Hard and dark as the world of these poems often is, Hodgen manages again and again to somehow transform the crucified world into a dazzling vortex of language and syntax and yet authentic shivelights of grace. Here is a unique and unmistakable voice for our moment." --Paul Mariani

About the Author
John Hodgen is an adjunct professor of English and creative writing at Assumption College and Mount Wachusett Community College. He is the author of two previous books of poetry: In My Father's House, winner of the Bluestem Award, and Bread Without Sorrow, winner of the Balcones Poetry Prize. Hodgen is the recipient of numerous other awards, including the Foley Poetry Prize, the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, the Grolier Prize, an Arvon Foundation Award, and the 2000 Massachusetts Cultural Commission Artist Foundation Grant in Poetry.

Customer Reviews

Stunning
I have, for the most part, grown out of the poetry "phase" that I went through in high school. Ten years later John Hodgen's books are the only poetry books that remain on my shelf.

This is, by far, his best work.

Exquisite
John Hodgen's Grace hovers like an angel between heaven and earth. His images are at once tragic, at once comical, at once poignant and redemptive. Hodgen leads readers on a faith journey that reveals the essence of life as both beautiful and terrible, yet he always ends with a note of hope. He demonstrates a love for the craft of poetry and a sensitivity to his reader as he reveals how the simplest things - the discovery of a forgotten letter, a lost bird, a small town, an old song, even an event at the Coolawhatchie Blimpie Gas 'n' Go - can lead us to a deeper understanding of the world and ourselves. Hodgen's sensitive and masterful use of rhyme scheme in certain poems in this book makes it a powerful tool for other writers to use in honing their craft.

Reviewer Paul Mariani wrote on the back cover of Grace: "Hard and dark as the world of these poems often is, Hodgen manages again and again to somehow transform the crucified world into a dazzling vortex of language and syntax and yet authentic shivelights of grace. Here is a unique and unmistakable voice for our moment." Well said! If you're seeking inspirational, powerful reading as well as help in perfecting the craft of poetry, Grace is your answer.