I’ve been reading poetry on the net and looking for bio’s of some guys I like. I love Tony Hoagland’s stuff, so I looked for a bio. All I found was these Curriculum Vitae things like, what awards did he get, how many grants, what has he published, where does he teach poetry to idiots to make a living, etc.
But I want to know: was he a good student? when he was a boy, could he fight? could he hit the long ball? how many times has he been divorced? ever been arrested? what kind of car does he drive? has he visited Uzbekistan? Romania? has he gone around the world on a tramp steamer? was he a passenger or a member of the crew? is he afraid to fly? does he own guns? can he hold his liquor? what’s his favorite TV show of all time? any artificial limbs?
I’m not being nosy, he’s a public person, he’s all over the net, sells books, gives seminars. I just want to know.
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8 comments:
Small minds discuss people; large minds discuss ideas. I know, I know, you're just being a wiseass. :) -NC
I know I'm a wiseass, but honestly, Tony Hoagland's stuff is full of ideas, and knowing a little about him would help to clarify them. I don't find information about his grants helpful.
People and their work are often totally different quantities. Apples & oranges. Hitler painted nice watercolors I'm told. -P.N.
In 1971, I attended South Lafourche High School (Larose, LA) with a student named Tony Hoagland. I was a sophmore, he was a senior. Since I was born in 1955 and he was two years ahead of me in school, I would assume that he was born in 1953. He had a twin brother named Robert Hoagland who tragically died after inhaling Pam cooking spray. This Tony Hoagland was exceptionally bright, winning a science award that year and participating in the school yearbook staff, etc. He was involved in many of the arts classes offered. I have no way of knowing if the Tony Hoagland I went to school with is Tony Hoagland the poet. However, I have a picture of the young Tony Hoagland and he appears to be a teen-aged version of the man I've seen in the Tony Hoagland bios.
Since you asked, just thought I'd let you know. I'd be interested to find out if it's the same guy.
Donna K, Charleston, WV
I believe I went to school with Tony Hoagland in 1971 at South Lafourche High School in Larose, LA. He was a senior; I was a sophmore. I had a terrible crush on him. He was blonde, sort of short, and immeasurably cute. Early in that year, his twin brother, Robert, inhaled Pam cooking spray (1970s version of huffing gasoline, I guess) and died. It was awful and many of us noticed the change in Tony.
Tony was exceptionally bright and won an award for science that year. He was on the yearbook staff. He was enormously popular. I could only worship him from afar. He never knew I existed.
Ironically enough, he was in the same class as Laney Chouest, whose namesake ship helped explore the Titanic.
I'm happy to see that he's become a famous poet. He deserves the accolades.
Donna K - Charleston, WV
P. S.
I may have posted two -- didn't notice the little green line on top. Pick the one you want and e-mail me if you'd like a scanned-in pic of Tony from the Silver King Times -- South Lafourche High School paper circa 1971.
Donna K
that's THE tony hoagland alright - the one with the twin brother who you went to high school with. It would seem that tragically losing his brother wasn't the only familial trauma TH endured:
"Tony Hoagland was born Anthony Dey Hoagland on November 19, 1953, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Very little biographical information as of 2003 was available on Hoagland, yet scholars of his work point to various known autobiographical poems that help draw a slim profile of him. Growing up in white, middle-class American suburbia — a theme in much of his poetic work — Hoagland seems to have been at odds with the wholesale materialism of his environment, viewing it with both cynicism and a desire to understand it. While his parents were able to provide him a comfortable childhood in the physical and monetary sense, Hoagland's poems tell the story of emotional upheavals within the family that mere money could not make up for. Apparently, his father intentionally ruined his own marriage (thus the title of Hoagland's first full-length collection, Sweet Ruin) and then died of a heart attack a short time later. At seventeen, the young poet lost his mother to cancer. Events at home, however, did not deter him from pursuing a college education, and he attended Williams College and the University of Iowa, eventually earning his master of fine arts degree at the University of Arizona in 1983. Not long after, Hoagland began a career in teaching English and poetry and has taught at several colleges and universities over the past two decades, including Arizona Western College, St. Mary's College in California, the University of Maine, and Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. Hoagland has also served on the English faculty at the University of Pittsburgh."
I don't think that March bio is correct. I think the father was still alive as late at 2008, or may still be. I know he's was and probably still is married to a fiction writer, but that FACT is rarely mentioned.
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