I’ve just finished reading (and reviewing) Tony Hoagland’s third collection, What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf, 2003). An interesting one. But not entirely in a good way. Normally I love his writing, especially his critical prose. But this book had me alternating between frustration and satisfaction. It was … soft where I expected it to be sharp. And definitely on the self-indulgent end of the scale.
One thing that leaped out straight away – and that really bugged me – was his litany of names. In just thirty-eight poems he refers to 37 different people by name: Alex, Anabelle, Ann (twice), Bethany, Boz, Carla, Carrie, Cindy Morrison, Cynthia, David (twice), Dean Young (and just Dean), Donna, Dorothy, Em, Ethan, George, Greg, Jerry, Joe, John, Kath (four times), Larry, Mack, Margaret, Margie, Marie (twice), Rus, Ruth, Shannon, Sharon, Susan (twice), Sylvie and Terrence. I’ve never encountered this issue in a poetry collection before, but it’s a useful thing to keep in mind: too many names without any information about why the person is important and/or how they relate to the story end up making the reader feel alienated. Of course, this could be a deliberate strategy – the book’s title means that everything should be read through an ironic lens. But if that were the case, you would expect to encounter no (or almost no) poems which don’t use any names at all. But there are twelve poems (and they’re some of the best in the collection) that content themselves with only using pronouns like ‘you’ or ‘she’, or titles like ‘my father’. So that doesn’t wash as an explanation. It also means that the name dropping is even more concentrated than I first thought … 37 names in twenty-six poems. Yikes....................
One thing that leaped out straight away – and that really bugged me – was his litany of names. In just thirty-eight poems he refers to 37 different people by name: Alex, Anabelle, Ann (twice), Bethany, Boz, Carla, Carrie, Cindy Morrison, Cynthia, David (twice), Dean Young (and just Dean), Donna, Dorothy, Em, Ethan, George, Greg, Jerry, Joe, John, Kath (four times), Larry, Mack, Margaret, Margie, Marie (twice), Rus, Ruth, Shannon, Sharon, Susan (twice), Sylvie and Terrence. I’ve never encountered this issue in a poetry collection before, but it’s a useful thing to keep in mind: too many names without any information about why the person is important and/or how they relate to the story end up making the reader feel alienated. Of course, this could be a deliberate strategy – the book’s title means that everything should be read through an ironic lens. But if that were the case, you would expect to encounter no (or almost no) poems which don’t use any names at all. But there are twelve poems (and they’re some of the best in the collection) that content themselves with only using pronouns like ‘you’ or ‘she’, or titles like ‘my father’. So that doesn’t wash as an explanation. It also means that the name dropping is even more concentrated than I first thought … 37 names in twenty-six poems. Yikes....................
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