Van Nguyen Nguyen থেকে Jadopur Dukhharan, Bihar, India
He has some good lines it's true. His tone is personable, allowing him to craft interesting scenarios from seemingly commonplace and overdone subject matter (i.e. life on the West Coast, masculinity,etc.) while juxtaposing these scenearios with increasingly intense and surreal imagery/speech. My tiff with Hoagland is that he can get forumalic: his weaker poems don't struggle for their insight; and because Hoagland doesn't stray too far from his general project of "critiquing of our cultural values via my ironic/tempered tone", the poems can, at their worst, blend into a obnoxiuos mix of confession and didacticism. However, on the whole, Hoagland is a pleasant guy, though not one I would bother going back to.
I was hoping for ideas & tips for crazy quilts and samplers and this turned out to be all about modular knitting. Horribly outdated regarding the fashion, but it feels unfair to give it one star since it was published in 1977. Plus the librarian who checked me out actually really liked the cover hat & scarf ensemble!