Mirror by Richie Hofmann - The New Criterion

Poems

January 2013

Mirror

Burke

was right!

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT
HEAVEN IS IT IS THE SURROUND OF THE LIVING
—James Merrill

You’d expect a certain view from such a mirror—
clearer
than one which hangs in the entry and decays.
I gaze
past my reflection toward other things:
bat wings,
burnt-gold upon blue, which decorate the wall
and all
those objects collected from travels, now seen
between
its great gold frame, diminished with age:
a stage
where, still, the supernatural corps-de-ballet
displays
its masquerade in the reflected light.
At night,
I thought I’d see the faces of the dead.
Instead,
the faces of the ghosted silver sea
saw me.

Richie Hofmann is a doctoral student at Emory University.

Webcasts

Poet George Green reads from his award-winning Lord Byron's Foot
George Green reads from Lord Byron's Foot, his collection of poetry that won the 2012 New Criterion Poetry Prize at a Friends & Young Friends event.

Celebration of the Life of Robert H. Bork, 1927–2012
From the memorial service for Robert H. Bork on April 9, 2013 at the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC.

James Panero on price gouging at the Met, with Fred Dicker
Are public museums like the Met overburdening visitors with "recommended" admission fees? Panero goes on 1300 AM to discuss his latest Daily News article during Fred Dicker's Albany-based radio program.

Weblog

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by Roger Kimball

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May 21, 2013 05:38 PM

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