ABOUT Freer

by Will Hochman

“Like the mythical figure of Antaeus, the giant whose strength derived from having at least one foot on a specific patch of ground, poems in Freer detail where Will Hochman has lived to show how place gives spiritual meaning to life. Like a photographer utilizing the lens of a box camera, head covered with a cloak, Hochman is invisible, trusting that readers will discover, intuit and interpret his vision. Never cropping the ragged edge off truth, he gives a feeling for locale difficult to obtain in a cosmopolitan age when so much of life is homogenized by traveling from golden arch to golden arch. Showing us how it feels to be alive at some particular place, for Hochman writing is an act of faith, like using the dowser’s twig to witch for water. Divided into two locales, urban poems are set in New York’s East Village. What other poet has written a poem about jacking up a car only to find the spare is flat or establish hypertext as a poetic fact of life? This memorable collection is a collage of places that shift, fluid as water. Nature poems explore Colorado, Montana, and the Connecticut shore. By infusing the Rocky Mountains with light, Hochman reveals subtle beauty of color, pale hues of lavender, plum, and peach, while in Cheyenne Canyon, he confronts a bear that looks like Miles Davis. One particularly moving poem records a Ludlow, Colorado strip mine strike in 1913-14 when 900 men, women and children/were jack-hammered into death’s ore. What unites the collection is a longing for lost places and people. Observing, Listen, this fact of being human is not enough / It seems absurd at first but I need something else. Hochman writes to save what can be held back by life from the darkness. In Freer, by tethering the heart, Hochman makes certain / that something holds on / to something more / than flesh and bone.” —Vivian Shipley