*

Richard Hoffman is the author of five books of poetry: Without Paradise; Gold Star Road, winner of The Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Sheila Motton Book Award from The New England Poetry Club; Emblem; Noon until Night, which received the 2018 Massachusetts Book Award for Poetry, and his most recent, People Once Real. His other books include the memoirs, Half the House and Love & Fury; Interference and Other Stories, and the essay collection Remembering the Alchemists. He is Emeritus Writer in Residence at Emerson College and Nonfiction Editor of Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices. He can be found on Facebook at richard.hoffman.718, and on Instagram at hoffman9422. His website is richardhoffman.org.

Donor

Richard Hoffman

Surely there will be
someone
for this heart

cleansed
slipped into a silken
pericardium

(is connected
right or re-
connected?)

shocked
it will begin
again

but if mine
is ineligible
too weak

rejected
I made
in that case

an effigy
in the shape
of this poem.

— Richard Hoffman

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