Social Life Essay & Criticism

Social Life Critical Overview

With only two full-length collections to his credit at this point, Hoagland has not yet been afforded volumes of criticism, good or bad, within the annals of literary scholarship. But the fact that both books he has produced were selected for prestigious awards by prominent colleagues in American poetry speaks strongly of a positive reception. Writing a book review of Sweet Ruin in a 1992 issue of Ploughshares, poet and critic Steven Cramer says that "Hoagland's poems grapple with selfhood and manhood, but they also consider the mysteries of national identity—how the social and the personal mutually impinge." At the end of the critique, Cramer sums up his evaluation by declaring, "Hoagland's is some of the most sheerly enjoyable writing I've encountered in a long time." Six years later, in a Library Journal book review of Donkey Gospel, critic Frank Allen says that "Hoagland's second book . ....
(read more)