Synopses & Reviews
"Ultimately, the lyrics in Hoodwinked read as odes to mortality. They marvel nonstop, unsentimentally, and with necessary ambivalence, at the world as given and the human inability to consistently rise to the exhausting challenge of making every second count. These poems constantly acknowledge that 'all flesh is grass.' They make us hear the wondrous, terrifying hum of impending obliteration, while at the same time never growing immune to beauty, never ceasing to be curious about what the grass itself makes of our common temporal conundrum."
Amy Gerstler, from the introduction
Inherent untrustworthinessof received opinion, the trompe loeil deceptions of nature, and the workings of our own unfaithful mindsis given its proper menace in David Hernandez Hoodwinked. In poems that range from the backyard to Iraq and back again, Hernandez disturbs the surface of contemporary life to reveal barely submerged worlds that, impossible to fathom, make fools of us all.
Review
"Under all the surfaces, is where these zany, ever-present poems roam. You have to pay close attention, reading, to catch up to the riddle and its revelation here. Hernandez is not fooling around, but this book brilliantly fools with our expectations and inability to focus on what's in front of us."
--Carol Muske-Dukes, The Huffington Post
Synopsis
Hernandez' third collection is blunt and undeceived. His odes to mortality are laced with wit and sadness rising like helium.
About the Author
David Hernandez: David Hernandezs poetry collections include Always Danger (Southern Illinois University Press, 2006), winner of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, and A House Waiting for Music (Tupelo Press, 2003). His poems have appeared in Field, Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, The Missouri Review, AGNI and The Southern Review. He is also the author of two YA novels, No More Us for You and Suckerpunch, both published by HarperTeen. David lives in Long Beach and is married to writer Lisa Glatt. Visit his website at www.DavidAHernandez.com.