Hoey, Allen 1952- (Allen S. Hoey)

PERSONAL:

Born October 21, 1952, in Kingston, NY; son of Allen (a cement plant worker) and Hazel (a homemaker) Hoey; married and divorded Cynthia Pitts, Roxane Rix, and Donna Biddle; married fourth wife August 5, 2006; wife's name Debra (a tutor); children: Owen, Stephen. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: State University of New York College at Potsdam, B.A., 1974; Syracuse University, M.A., 1980, Ph.D., 1984. Politics: Socialist. Religion: Rinzai Zen Buddhist. Hobbies and other interests: Cooking, photography, target shooting.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New Hope, PA. Office—Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA 18940. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY, assistant professor, 1985-90; Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA, professor, 1990—. Bucks County Poet Laureate Program, director.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Camden Poetry Prize, Walt Whitman Center for the Arts, 1985, for A Fire in the Cold House of Being; fellow, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, 2002.

WRITINGS:

Evening in the Antipodes (poetry), Banjo Press (Potsdam, NY), 1977.

A Fire in the Cold House of Being (poetry), Walt Whitman Center for the Arts (Camden, NJ), 1987.

What Persists (poetry), Liberty Street Books, 1992.

Provecal Light and Other Poems, FootHills Publishing (Kanona, NY), 2005.

The Precincts of Paradise (poetry), David Robert Books (Cincinnati, OH), 2005.

Chasing the Dragon: A Novel about Jazz, Xlibris (Philadelphia, PA), 2006.

Voices beyond the Dead (novel), PublishAmerica (Frederick, MD), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Hudson Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and Southern Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

Allen Hoey told CA: "I have been drawn to writing and art since I was quite young. When I was about six or seven I began producing my first books—illustrated histories of the Civil War with some commentary. I pursued both into college when I decided to concentrate my attention on writing. In poetry, I'm motivated by particular situations or ideas that come together with images, a scrap of language, and rhythm. I write novels largely because it's fun to work in prose and develop characters and situations.

"The primary influences on my poetry include both older and contemporary poets. Robert Frost, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens have all played some role in the development of my thoughts about poetry and the kinds of language and rhythm that move me. These influences served as a kind of filter for the later influences, which include Kenneth Rexroth, Jim Harrison, Jack Gilbert, and Hayden Carruth. Carruth began serving as my mentor in 1979 at Syracuse University and has remained both an influence and a friend since then. I've also benefited from the critical help of a number of very talented poets, including Don Hall, David Dooley, and George Drew.

"My writing process is difficult to describe because it can vary from project to project and genre to genre. When I'm writing poetry, I tend to write quickly when image, language, and rhythm coalesce. I usually complete first drafts in one or two sittings. Then the long process of revision begins. Typically I do most of my revisions in the few days following initial composition, but that process is ongoing. My process in writing novels is somewhat different. I get an idea and begin, usually at the beginning. I write regularly (rather than intermittently, as with poetry) though I'm rarely sure ‘how things turn out’ until I'm a significant way into the novel. This often necessitates extensive revision, both during the initial composition and afterward. Novels may go through several drafts, though many of those drafts will be variants of the initial composition.

"The subjects I've written about have chosen me. Something about them has inspired me to pursue them, whether at length or in a relatively brief poem. I don't know what the quality is that draws me to particular subjects, and I'm not sure that I want to know.

"My writing undergoes constant change. I've been lucky enough in my career not to have been published immediately after completing a book. This means that I've moved into a new style or theme by the time the book is published, so I'm not tempted to continue in the same vein. For several years in the early part of this new century, I didn't write poetry at all because I felt I'd synthesized all I had to say in one poem ‘Essay on Snow.’ I concentrated my attention on novels for the next few years. Then, in 2005, I began slowly writing poems again, and by 2006 I exploded into poetry, sometimes writing two poems a day. These poems are quite different in most ways from my earlier work, which is what allowed the new work to come."