RaveThe Hopkins ReviewRichie Hofmann’s second poetry collection, A Hundred Lovers, and the experience of reading it, can be best described as a reverie, a state of pleasantly sinking in one’s thoughts as a daydream ... Readers of his revered debut Second Empire will recognize the economy of language and subtle sonic threads he uses to construct this world—a style that differentiates him from his contemporaries, as seemingly quieter than those who prioritize pronounced experimentation and as more affectively difficult than those who prioritize accessibility. Readers will also appreciate how his voice has developed in a collection that feels more concretely grounded on the personal pronouns \'I\' and \'we\' and more personally invested in desire, time, nature, and art ... Hofmann’s poems impart more than desire to the reader. They present, communicate, and bestow an idleness, especially when they don’t focus on brief sexual encounters but on the permanence of a single romantic one ... At a time when contemporary poetry often seeks affective responses that are limited to major emotions such as anger, sadness, happiness, and hope, Hofmann’s poetry expands the repertoire ... Hofmann proves that he does not only engage with this global lineage but has substantially contributed to it, engaging with desire, male beauty, and the body, through senses and seasons, in ways that readers of the 21st century will find irresistible.
Solmaz Sharif
RaveThe Harvard Review... brings together these disparate definitions in poems that push against poetic custom ... In her poems, Sharif takes economy of style to an extreme—but she does more than just that. For her, disruption and negation are also powerful tools of communication. This is the case even in her longer poems ... In poems like this, Sharif places readers in the in-between position she occupies. She forces us to live with the uncertainty of not understanding things fully ... Sharif’s ruminations on language in Customs—and how to keep it alive and potent—cement her position as one of the most thoughtful poets working today.
