Application for Release from the Dream

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>Are we corrupt or innocent fragmented or whole? Are responsibility and freedom irreconcilable? Do we value memory or succumb to our forgetfulness? </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)>Application for Release from the Dream</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(33 37 41 1)> Tony Hoagland's fifth collection of poems pursues these questions with the fierce abandon of one who needs to know how a citizen of 21st-century America can stay human. With whiplash nerve and tender curiosity Hoagland surveys the damage and finds the wonder that makes living worthwhile. Mirthful fearless and precise these poems are full of judgment and mercy. Tony Hoagland's poems poke and provoke at the same time as they entertain and delight. He is American poetry's hilarious 'high priest of irony' a wisecracker and a risk-taker whose disarming humour self-scathing and tenderness are all fuelled by an aggressive moral intelligence. He pushes the poem not just to its limits but over the edge.</span></p>