One Lark, One Horse

"Yes, a wonderful poet and translator. Admirers of Hofmann’s work have waited a long time for this book—it’s been something like 20 years since his last collection. But that time has been filled with a succession of outstanding translations of poetry and novels, the most recent of which is Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz . I’ve admired his work since his first book, Nights in the Iron Hotel (1984). It was written in his early twenties, and he already seemed fully formed as a poet. Even there he moves between cultures and languages with ease and rapidity, in a way none of his contemporaries would have thought of doing, or been able to. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter The new work is as challenging and original as ever. It takes on, a bit like Hayes, the present moment, and with breathtaking reach and virtuosity: Trump’s America, Brexit—politically a confederacy of dunces. He turns the ugliest, dumbest material (the detritus of everyday life, from acronyms to social media) into grimly brilliant assemblages. Of all my contemporaries, it seems he’s the one that’s most heard and attended to that famous injunction of Rimbaud’s: ‘Il faut être absolument moderne’. (Perhaps in my own work, I’ve been perversely taking the opposite advice: ‘Il faut être absolument ancien’!) But this book has been worth waiting for, even by his own very high standards. Well, my own experience, as I said before, is that translating can be energising but it can also be exhausting. And Hofmann has done way more than anyone I can think of—it’s a dizzying tower of books. Who knows what the reasons are? The thing is, real poets aren’t—or shouldn’t be—on any schedule where they have to turn out a volume every few years. It’s refreshing to see a poet whose writing is governed by some kind of inner necessity. “Real poets aren’t—or shouldn’t be—on any schedule . . . It’s refreshing to see a poet whose writing is governed by some kind of inner necessity” I think in an interview somewhere, he said he didn’t want to add to the European ‘butter mountain’. [ Laughs .] Even if we might think a bit more kindly of the EU and its trade agreements these days. In this book, as I said, he touches on Brexit—he’s got the means adequate for dealing with the totally idiotic politics we’re living through, but the book has a huge span inclusive of Australia, North America and Germany as well, and its inclusiveness is as much linguistic as cultural. I suppose the politics are foisted on writers by the present moment. Hofmann’s work has always looked more to the contemporary than the past, and that almost inevitably involves politics. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . I don’t mean that poets are obliged to wear a badge of party adherence, but they are engaging with their age. It would surprise me for any poet if there wasn’t at least some significant element of that, however refracted or disguised."