Poet and translator Michael Hoffman shared a diverse portfolio of poetry last night with a mixed audience of 25 graduate and undergraduate students, professors and local distinguished poets.
The event, sponsored by the University Professors Program and the Boston University Humanities Foundation, was held in the Theology building.
Hoffman read for an hour, describing the inspiration behind each poem before reading each one. He read a total of 20 poems, including three audience requests and four translated German works written by other poets.
Hoffman’s works shared a number of themes, including his numerous traveling experiences, life in other nations, his novelist father Gert Hoffman and the effect of time on people. He read one poem, called ‘Intonations of Immortality,’ about his current home in Florida.
‘You live there to live forever’, said Hoffman, referring to the state’s elderly population. He said he was happy to be in the ‘big old city’ of Boston, and prefaced his reading by quoting The Smiths, asking, ”I like it here, Can I stay?”
In another poem, ’50s Cuba,’ Hoffman described his perception of Cubans ‘living on the edge of the U.S.,’ bound to the larger country in a combination of history and hatred.
Several students at the event said Hoffman’s presentation was unlike standard poetry readings.
‘It was a rather intimate setting,’ said Adam Dressler, a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program, noting the combination of Hoffman’s conversational presentation, his quiet voice and the small turnout for the reading. He and other students found it refreshing to see a poet take requests.
Dressler said he was impressed that Hoffman read poetry written by other poets.
‘It was good to see that he read translations of someone he felt was more interesting,’ Dressler said.
Hoffman began writing as a novelist, but said his stories ‘always broke off after half a page.’ He fell into a ‘poetry trap’ because, while he said he thinks novels require too much description, the subjects within each poem have to describe each other.
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