Collected in this volume of selected poems are three previous collections: Forms of Life, a powerful and stark rumination on human economy, a haunting exploration of the struggle for survival in uncertain times, inspired by sources as diverse as Malthus and Habakkuk; The Vast Practical Engine, a lyric collage of the philosophy of pragmatism, which utilizes the cadences of William James; and Life At Braintree, drawn from the letters of John Adams and alchemized into a series of spare poems, open to the voices of the American past, [that] wonderfully assume an unexpected richness, a wealth of saying (Norman Finkelstein). Also included here is a gathering of recent poems and translations of a section of the Book of Isaiah, the haiku of Ozaki Hosai, and Georg Trakl.

Eric Hoffman’s sharp-eyed and agile poems are teeming with surprise (Patrick Pritchett) and deserve to be better and more widely-known (Eileen Tabios). The quality of the verse… is undeniable; there are great pleasures to be had in Hoffman’s lines (Jason Ranek). His poetry manifests a restless and manifold creativity (Anthony Rudolf).