News Release
Bucks Professor Launches Eighth Book, a Poetry Collection
Allen Hoey releases “Once Upon a Time at Blanche’s” to follow-up on previous Pulitzer-nominated collection
As a follow-up to his Pulitzer-nominated poetry collection Country Music, Bucks County Community College professor Allen Hoey has published Once Upon a Time at Blanche’s.
“The earliest poems in this collection were included in Country Music,” the New Hope resident explains. “They take place in a fictionalized version of a dive bar where I used to go when I was an undergraduate at a state college in the North Country of New York State.”
Hoey uses narrative and dialogue to have Blanche’s regulars – a 1970s mix of farmers and mill workers – tell funny stories. But he goes beyond the typical “guy walks into a bar” humor.
“As I kept writing, I realized that for every bit of humor in the poems they revealed an essential sorrow, verging on a kind of modern tragedy,” Hoey says. “That same conversational mix of tragedy, mishap, and humorous half-acceptance continues through the book, including poems about birthing cows, an over-flowed septic tank, an act of vengeance, and an elderly lesbian farmer.”
Once Upon a Time at Blanche’s is the eighth book by Hoey, who also served as Bucks County Poet Laureate in 2001. In addition to teaching at BCCC, Hoey serves as the director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate program and is a past recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship. This spring, he’ll be teaching English Composition II, Creative Writing, and Introduction to Poetry. To register, visit www.bucks.edu or call 215-968-8100.
Glory
and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
—Psalms 19:1
Sometimes, late night, the middle of January
maybe, I get home, everything’s quiet, the cows
aren’t in the pasture out back, all the lights
turned off as far as I can see, the packed snow
crunches underfoot as I step away from the car
and slam the door, but not quite a crunch, almost
a kind of squeak, it’s that cold, and then, cold
as it is, I stand beside the car and lift my head
to look up at the sky, not a cloud, a high wind’s
blown the heavens clear, and all the stars are weaving
the way I’d weave heading across the yard
and up the stairs, the warm air, the faint trace of
heating oil, the rumpled bed at the end of the hall,
but now the stars dance their little dance and,
my God, it’s cold, and I’m here, and that’s
just about the best a man could ever care about.
Copyright © 2009 by Allen Hoey
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