Carlie Hoffman ’16 Publishes Second Poetry Collection

When There Was Light, a second collection of poetry from alumna Carlie Hoffman ’16, is out now from Four Way Books. 

In this sophomore collection, Hoffman aims to face the past unflinchingly. She writes, in a poem titled, “While Waitressing at the Kosher Restaurant a Man Calls Me a Whore and a Woman Rushes Behind Me into the Kitchen to Hand Me Her Baby”: 

Every season is good for killing girls,
          the seaweed-black night foaming

with stars—
          a plaque of women’s names.

Before Mary’s a whore,
          a baby is placed in the frozen bird

of her lap, the dignity in being.
          Every place that hurts you

is the season where the sun bursts
          like salmon on fire. Think

of Eve shivering naked beneath the alder
          watching God get angry—

is it anger or is it grief—all of us doing
          what we’ve been trained to do.

A glowing review from Publishers Weekly says, “The wrenching and intimate second collection from Hoffman is rich with tight, lyrical poems… It lands as a multifaceted and meditative look at the lasting powers of memory.”

Poet Rebecca Morgan Frank also applauded the collection, praising the way it “expands on the sparse and haunting lyricism of [Hoffman’s] 2021 debut.” Frank goes on to say, “Hoffman excels when she cedes narrative to metaphor.”

When There Was Light is available for purchase here. 

Carlie Hoffman is the author of the poetry collection This Alaska, which was the winner of the NCPA Gold Award in Poetry and a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award.  Hoffman’s honors include a 92Y/Discovery Prize, an Amy Award from Poets & Writers, a Brooklyn Poets fellowship, and fellowships from the New York State Summer Writers Institute and Columbia University. She has been listed as one of Narrative Magazine’s 30 below 30 poets and her poems have been published in' Bennington Review, Boston Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, and elsewhere.