by Katharine Armbrester
A rapidly emerging voice in Christian verse, Angela Hoffman is the author of the beguiling and uniquely titled poetry collection Olly Olly Oxen Free, and it offers a wide array of both traditional and experimental poems exploring Christian themes, including subjects that have been on believers’ hearts since the days of the early church.
From the outset you are eager to peruse the collection just from reading the evocative poem titles: “The Terrain Shifts,” “Cockleburs,” “Even the Peas Know,” and “She Has Done a Beautiful Thing.” Every page that is turned will renew a unique perception or an exquisite image.
The title poem is filled with an intriguing use of word repetition and effective staccato sentences. “God went hiding… He was not in my unanswered prayers, / not in the pews at church, nor in a box of doctrines.” Her willingness to describe spiritual isolation and “the dark night of the soul” is immensely refreshing to read from a devout person.
A moving and theologically insightful example is in “I Feed My Soul,” where she exhorts her readers to chase solitude: “I sip on sweet solitude / chew on words / swallow the verse.” It feels like too little attention is given to the gifts of contemplation and seclusion and it is needed more than ever in our ever humming, shouting world. When Hoffman discusses the treasures of intimacy and conversation with God, she is reminiscent of Whittier, “Drop Thy still dews of quietness, / Till all our strivings cease.”
Hoffman is exuberant in her use of colors and her love of nature and animals leaps off the page. You are going to read about geraniums, and chickens. Lots and lots of birds. Her greatest skill is perhaps in her combining insightful observations of God’s creation with deep theological concepts. One of the best examples of this is her poem “Stunned into Living”:
“The bird in a stupor / just lies there, not moving…It will fly again. The collision was only an awakening. / We’ve all become just as stunned / speaking without listening / doing without noticing / preoccupied.”
Hoffman also shines in her liberal use of short, frank, observant sentences. This leads to brief but highly concentrated poems that linger with the reader. One example is her poem “Shallow Waters Are Not Safe,” where she writes “Dive deep / where darkness is divine…where you can hang only onto faith.” She is not afraid to challenge the complacency to which many believers fall prey.
What instructions did He put within you / that you know to look for the light and lean in? What has He engraved on my heart then, / if even the peas know?”
Hoffman is a tender observer of the splendors around her, and if you are not inspired to walk away from your electronics and go outside and lie in the grass, ready to commune with God and his creation then you need to read Olly Olly Oxen Free over again. Every time you read Hoffman’s verses you will be renewed and inspired anew to observe the natural wonders we are charged to steward, and that can unfailingly bless us.
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Katharine Armbrester is in the MFA creative writing program at the Mississippi University for Women. She is a devotee of Flannery O’Connor and Margaret Atwood and fully intends to be an equally disconcerting playwright—she thinks Alabama needs one. Katharine has been recently published in the Lucky Jefferson literary journal, the Birmingham Arts Journal, and the supernatural Twilight Zone-inspired anthology, Step Into the Fifth Dimension.
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