Title : USA Anytime Anyplace
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 258 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 195892024X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1958920244
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.58 x 8.5 inches

book review by Heather Brooks, The US Review of Books

“Kithira’s never ending drive was to live in an ideal world which she perceived could exist.”

It could happen anywhere, anytime, in the United States. Kithira Manof is beautiful, self-confident, and largely invisible to those around her. Her grandfather died when she was four, and she hasn’t enjoyed a close or healthy relationship with a man since. She engages in numerous superficial relationships with men who either disgust her or become the objects of her obsession after only a brief acquaintance. Other women make her feel so inadequate that she has no close female friends. Despite holding a master’s degree, she spends eleven years in a dead-end clerking job. Highly intelligent and scathingly analytical, Kithira, a black woman surrounded by whites in both her private and professional lives, smarts under her exclusion. Yet, she never loses faith that her ideal world, a place free of racism where everyone can get the recognition due them and the kind of love they need, is possible despite her disillusionment.

Hoffman is a licensed marriage counselor, and this comes through in her writing by way of her erudite word choice and incisive descriptions of her characters’ strengths and insecurities. Although the text’s complex language to describe even simple plot events and ideas may confuse or even deter certain readers, it might be used in a college course in women’s studies, African American studies, psychology, or sociology. She clearly draws on personal experiences as she presents Kthira as an educated woman of color whose brilliant potential is forcibly shrouded in institutional racism. Relatably, Kithira readily notices the pettiness and envy in others, even as she is initially oblivious to those traits within her own personality. Admirably, she is still sensitive to the sexual abuse and harassment other women around her suffer. Hoffman subtly presents the idea that different individuals need different sorts of love, besides responding to love differently.

Title : The Lament: Selected Poems and Prose
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 118 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1432743465
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1432743468
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 0.28 x 8.5 inches

Review by: David Allen, Pacific Book Review

Students of serious poetry as well as poetasters of every stripe will find much to ponder, fascinate and delight in this collection by Ercell H. Hoffman. The pieces in this chapbook range from one verse-long stunners to more discursive more rambling prose poems. Hoffman’s use of language, multi-tiered and multi-dimensional, is fierce and at times unique. Which perfectly suits the weave: hers is a tapestry of memory, sadness, occasional madness, and beaucoup desire, sensitivity and love.

Consider the lines:

To live without love is to live without food and drink.
I’m dying of starvation and thirst!
To crave for the ideal is a yoke upon those who hunger after it.

Hoffman’s verse variously celebrates, bemoans but always apostrophizes the stewpot of tenderness, love and romance. The poet captures the many shades and fractals of these in this no-holds-barred disclosure of self. The Lament is a lyrically poised polygraph. The poet asks you her questions and tells you no lies.

What is a poem?

A poem is born to the poet as the dream is to a sleeper.
It is welcomed by the soul as the early morn its dew.
Its nourishment is no less than is the pollen left on the bud by the life-giving bee.
Like a blossoming flower the soul is relieved.

There is history in here. There are elegies to racial and social divides, as lived personally. At the same time, inspiration and language from the medieval courtly tradition of troubadours and minnesingers is evident: in the grammar, in the use of archaic pronouns, in the exotic roll of the meter.

Romantic love is not the only focus of Hoffman’s swift and evocative darts. Here’s her description of a child:

I saw his eyes, kissed his lips . . .played with his nose.
My child, you are the gift of months of longing
and the drink that quenches my thirst for love.

Poems like these achieve a lyrical intensity, a ludic presence, that is palpable, almost apocalyptic. D. H. Lawrence and Dylan Thomas would be suitable next reads!

At the end of the day, Hoffman’s paramount concerns are existential. Life can be sticky business. But those who wish to play, to truly live, will agree with the poet that “…life…comes with defiance of death.”

Title : The Lament: Selected Poems and Prose
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 118 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1432743465
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1432743468
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 0.28 x 8.5 inches

Review by: B. Davis

I tend to approach books of poetry with a bit of trepidation, knowing that the poet’s soul lies bare within the pages of their collections. I wasn’t sure what I would find in The Lament or how I would write a positive review if I didn’t enjoy or relate to the work. But I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised with this author. The Lament (Selected Poems and Prose) is insightful; beautiful and emotional; intense yet humble. Ercell H. Hoffman understands the human condition and is able to put into words the feelings most of us are unable to articulate. I especially liked The Birth of a Poem. I will proudly keep this volume alongside more prominent poets. If you enjoy poetry, I highly recommend The Lament. 5 stars***** Thank you to the author for my review copy.