The palindromic title given [Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba] intimates Hoffman's delight in verbal play; also perhaps a lack of stylistic "development" which, given his range, virtuosity and witty inventiveness, hardly matters. In "An armada of thirty whales" we read:

                The ceremonial motion
                of their ponderous race is
                given dandiacal graces
                in the ballet of their geysers.

Hoffman has dandiacal graces enough of his own: his zestful verbal flamboyance, supple use of rhyme and other sound-effects, linguistic quirks, while never so inordinate as to exasperate or baffle the reader, make the processes of his writing vital and interesting…. There is an early thematic shift from poems preoccupied with birds, beasts and flowers to wider human concerns. Hoffman shows a talent for symbolic fictions, in poems such as "The City of Satisfactions" where the reader is drawn into a fantasy-world made compelling by the recognizable dailiness of...