At the Galleria Shopping Mall

At its most immediate level, “At the Galleria” seems effortlessly formless, really anti-poetic, mimicking more the casual eloquence of observation. Yet it is deftly, subtly designed. The poem is executed in couplets of long lines that do not abide any kind of anticipated rhythm or rhyme, yet the long and sinewy lines create a feeling of casual and inviting immediacy, welcoming the reader into the basic situation—who in Hoagland’s culture has not walked into a mall?—unaware they are in fact dealing with a highly pitched moment of fast approaching insight. The poem does not feel, read, or scan like a poem. The reader is caught unawares—as if we are heading to the mall, like the poet/speaker, expecting anything but an epiphany.

The diction is accessible and decidedly not poetic. The lines read as conversational. The style is lean and athletic with a kind of fetching crispness that suggests only loosely that this is a poem. The couplets effortlessly move one to the next—the poet seldom stops a couplet from moving to the next with end-punctuation. Read aloud the poem is seamless, moving with its own quiet kinetics.