The title [of Hoffman's selected poems]—Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba—is appropriate in at least two ways. With its reference to Napoleon's enforced residence on Elba, the old palindrome suggests the principal theme of Hoffman's work—exile from "another country," one that he has known as though in a dream and to which he will one day return triumphantly. As for the fact that the title can be read both ways, Hoffman's work … not only can but should be read both in chronological and in anti-chronological order.

"Now why," asks Daniel Hoffman, "would a visitation from the Isles/Of the Blessed come to Swarthmore, Pa. 19081, a borough zoned/For single-family occupancy? No/Rocks of Renunciation on our/Assessors' rolls" ("A Visitation," Striking the Stones). These lines are typical of Hoffman's poetic product in a number of ways. The tone is conversational, the language colloquial. The...