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Published Poetry by Geoffrey Hoffman
GEOFFREY HOFFMAN - BOOKTITLES
So far, I have had these three books of poetry published, each very different from the others, both in subject-matter and style:
(1) Trial by Verse
(2) The Jewish Pilgrimage: An Exploration of Reality, Mainly in Verse
(3) Steps into Poetry: Nonsense and Other Verse for Children
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Trial by Verse
Here's an example, entitled "Crisis in Court" -
Horror! Counsel's dropped his book,
Waking everyone in Court.
Without this volume, counsel must
Rely on unaccustomed thought.
Counsel's caseless - counsel's lost.
Yet this shattering event
Can't be without precedent?
The usher rises from his nook,
With a condescending look -
Picks the volume up again.
Silence is audible; and then
Counsel with a frown condign
Turns the page and seeks the line
To support his argument.
Thus another crisis passes -
Horror! Counsel's dropped his glasses...
Comic and satiric verse about the law, its makers and practitioners, it was published by Barry Rose, one of the leading Law Publishers in England. His Honour Judge Israel Finestein QC commented that he read this book “with interest, amusement and benefit.” It was also given a favourable reading by several Judges of the Supreme Court, and reviewed with approval in The Jewish Chronicle and in Isthmus Poetry Magazine. The author was interviewed about it, and read extracts, on Three Counties Radio.
Copies may be obtained from Hammicks Legal Bookshop, 191-192 Fleet Street, London (tel. 0207-405-3554) or ordered on-line from fleets@hammicks.co.uk,
or from www.amazon.co.uk, Foyles, Borders, Waterstone’s, Blackwell’s, Ottakar’s and others.
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The Jewish Pilgrimage:
An Exploration of Reality, Mainly in Verse
One example, entitled "An Answer to Fanatics" -
Except in the enforced defence
Of freedom, life, or innocence,
Whoever lifts the sword
Defies the Lord.
To fight for God is an offence:
The father-sin of violence.
Whoever kills in Heaven's name
Is Heaven's shame.
One cannot make God's glory more
By disobeying Heaven's law;
Nor violence at any price
Buy the way to Paradise.
Other extracts are quoted in Reviews.
The book is in two parts. The first is philosophical verse, entitled “The Moral Genesis.” This has two meanings, referring on the one hand to the nature of right and wrong, and on the other hand to why God (if He exists) could be justified in creating a universe where suffering is inevitable. Its purpose was to argue out certain ideas for consideration. It is a form of poetry that might be called “the poetry of ideas” as distinct from traditional descriptive or narrative verse, because it explores problems and sets out conjectures. Inevitably it will be controversial. It is in poetry, because the author finds that a natural way to think! The second part of the book consists of individual poems, and one or two short pieces in prose, about Jewish history, Israel, etc.
Copies may be obtained on-line from www.amazon.co.uk or from such leading booksellers as Foyles, Borders, Waterstone’s and Ottakar’s; in America from PublishAmerica (tel. 301-695-1707) or world-wide from www.amazon.com.
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Steps into Poetry:
Nonsense and other Verse for Children
One sample, entitled "Crazy Lazy Daisy" -
Crazy Lazy Daisy
And her little sister Maisie
Were feeling rather hazy
About who and what they were.
Were they rabbits with bad habits
Who would only eat Welsh rarebits
And would never leave the spare bits
For the pussy-cats that purr?
Were they pussy-cats themselves?
Were they pixies? Were they elves?
Fairies sitting upon shelves,
Wrapped in robes of velvet fur?
One morning they woke up in bed
And turned a richly ruby red:
They were not what they thought they were,
But something else instead.
The verse in this book is designed to catch the minds of children and spark interest in rhythm and language. They have always preferred rhythm both in words and music to a bald story. Very small children also like nonsense being read to them by an adult; and older children may feel a sense of achievement as they grow to understand and appreciate poems that do not treat them as idiots but come more and more to appeal to their developing minds. In addition, teachers should appreciate a book that encourages children to read poetry, particularly if, like the verse in this book, it starts in simple terms and goes on to become deeper in words and ideas.
Copies may be ordered from www.amazon.co.uk, Foyles, Borders, Waterstone’s, Blackwell’s, Ottakar’s and others; in America from PublishAmerica (tel. 301-695-1707) or world-wide from www.amazon.com.
(4) More volumes are on their way, each one very different from the others….
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
My name is Geoffrey Hoffman.Having read English at Oxford, I (naturally) qualified as a Solicitor and joined the Civil Service, being at different times Deputy Assistant Registrar of Criminal Appeals in the Supreme Court; and head of Conveyancing and Matrimonial Litigation for the Official Solicitor, acting principally on behalf of the mentally ill. A few years ago I took early retirement. All this time I have been writing poetry, of various kinds and styles, while generally avoiding an ultra-modernistic approach.
To date, since retiring, I have won 17 prizes in poetry competitions. In particular, one of my poems won first prize in an international competition, while others have won second and third prizes. Many of my poems have appeared in English poetry magazines.
REVIEWS
Trial by Verse
1. The following review was published in The Jewish Chronicle:
Geoffrey Hoffman is a solicitor living in Watford with his wife, daughter, “and the smile on the face of his cat.” A playful cat’s influence is indeed almost discernable in this quite substantial collection of light verse. Most of the pieces cut a satirical swathe through the weird and sometimes wayward contortions of our legal system. Their appeal, however, extends - like the inner musings of a Rumpole - well beyond that bewigged world. Hoffman’s ebullient comic capers burst “the gravity balloon with the needle-point of wit,” though “to laugh at the law is dangerous, for the law cannot laugh at itself. The law is a lion (or some would say, a shark) and its jaws are always open for those who frisk with it.”
Time, I fear, has moved on since the first sentence was written: I have retired and moved from Watford; and my cat, alas, is no more.
2. Review by Maurice James of Isthmus Magazine:
ISBN 1-872328-60-1 (83 pages)
Entertaining and clever, Geoff Hoffman, a retired solicitor, shares with us, in verse, the daily complexities and occurrences within the theatre of a Court; each player is likened to a breed of cat - every one different.Pick up this book and you’ll meet the leopard Registrar, the local government ginger tom Solicitor. You’ll find, of course, the litigation panther lawyers, “the hunters in the human jungle”…and even a Martian! You’ll read lines like:
“The Registrar has lost his file -
His papers are aflutter.
Such conduct’s really rather steep:
The Registrar is half asleep,
Concealing it with practiced guile,
Then waking with a splutter.”
and
“And clouds were bright beneath me
As I sang a whisky song.
Then a copper’s car soared by,
Caught me speeding from the sky,
With, “Sir, have you been drinking,
Or learning how to fly?”
and
“I knew my sin: I’d said I wished
that Satan could be shot.
The Court was not concerned with this, and didn’t care a jot.
The only question in their minds was should I be let free,
Or could I have offended,
against subsection three?”
You’ll enjoy this book. I did!
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The Jewish Pilgrimage
1. Review by Revd. Jonathan Gorski (and published in Common Ground, the Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews):
When this book by a CCJ member appeared for review I considered myself far too prosaic to review a book of poetry. Once I read it I found I enjoyed it. A major theme of the book is the problem that has troubled religious people ever since the book of Job - the presence of evil in the world and the need for human beings to show each other compassion. One poem explains the use of poetry:...'All poetry is prayer: it is a door that opens to reveal the face of God.' Several poems try to explain the process of creation - one ends: 'God smiled, and there was light.' Another describes Israel and Jerusalem in terms with which I can identify:
'This land is vibrant in its stillness.
Here all experience seems more intense:
The mountains seem more mountain...
And all that is alive seems more alive...
Until I saw Jerusalem I did not know I was in
exile...'
2. Review by Lillian Brummet (an American Reviewer):
The Jewish Pilgrimage by Geoffrey Hoffman is clearly written to inspire philosophical discussion. This book depicts the author's personal journey to find some form of understanding about man, our various versions of God and how this effects society and the use of its knowledge. He debates moral issues and provokes deep thinking in several areas that will never leave my mind as I travel along my own road.Geoffrey questions the justness of creation itself and the gift of consciousness. Also he cleverly uses metaphors when he depicts various pieces of himself by using the universe, planets and astrological colors. Without a doubt this student of life, takes joy in nature. Throughout the book the author makes his awe in the vastness of the universe quite apparent. My personal favorite piece was Beautiful Among The Buildings, which used powerful visual statements like:
"Night sprawls among the broken lives
that line the broken street;
The lonely and unpitied men
whose waste is our defeat.
Men stagger from dank cellars;
men, imprisoned in their cars,
Go roaring into sightlessness -
unmindful of the stars."
And the equally powerful anti-war piece, No Frontiers:
"The father carrying the limp body of his child,
The soldier staring at his amputated hand,
The little girl among the bloodied pieces of her parents.
What does it matter if they are of one side or another?
Dogma cannot grieve.It is the pain of individuals that
sears."
I also really appreciated "Half Sight", which discussed the inability to witness the good and love in life when there is so much horror to distract us from it. "Today Near Watford Market" was a very moving piece for me in that it was so visual. It describes an event where the author witnesses a man speaking to the public about his lack of belief in religion. And "circling like wolves, the true-believers snarled, snapping at both his arguments and him." Yet nearby an elderly women fell, sprawling her shopping items on the ground around her. The non-believer ran over to her side and helped her on her way, "jostling to her assistance through unmoving ranks of true-believing ice". It is a beautiful story about seeing God where you least expect it.In the later part of the book, the author moves away from poetry and gets in to verse debating who the Jewish people are, what they are perceived as being and the persecution of this group of people through the ages. His interesting look at the holocaust does not dwell on the sorrow or loss of the people rather it centers on the people themselves. By far, Jewish people are not the only race of people who have suffered at the hands of man and I think the author means to use the example as a tool to accelerate the intellectual growth of mankind.
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FINAL MESSAGE BY THE AUTHOR
I have prepared a number of other books of verse, each on a different theme and in a different style.
I take this opportunity to thank my devoted readers.If they or anyone else would like to contact me about my poetry, they may do so on geoffbarcarolle@yahoo.co.uk.
TOM
HANNAH
Send E-Mail to: geoffbarcarolle@yahoo.co.uk
Copyright © 2008 Geoffrey Hoffman. All Rights Reserved