Paul Hoover

Paul Hoover Poems

Paul Hoover Biography

Paul Hoover was born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1946. He currently holds a position as a professor of Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Together with Maxine Chernoff, he edited and translated Selected Poems of Friedrich Hölderlin. In another collaboration, together with Nguyen Do, Hoover edited and translated the anthology Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry (Milkweed Editions, 2008).)

The Best Poem Of Paul Hoover

Corazón

Simple things like bread,
you can't even think about them.

The lesson of skin touching skin,
the lesson of earth as it rolls in darkness,
the lesson of things as they are.

The mind collapses under the weight
of so much thinking. It's almost tragic.

The road has no thought of distance.
The road is just the road.

Words don't think us,
words on a table among the other meats,
words like summers passing.

In blue organdy dresses,
the policemen are euphoric.

Transparent and irreverent,
the wide face of lightning
is pressed to water's surface.

The century is thick with history
and the worst of intentions.

The very worst intentions,
and all I can drink lately
is the filthy holy water.

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