At the Galleria Shopping Mall

Unexpected, even jarring insight in unexpected places at unexpected moments, is the reward of engaging a Tony Hoagland poem. As poet of the everyday world that exists all about each of us unnoticed and unsuspected of carrying the weight of insight, Hoagland is keen to the act and art of noticing, alert to the premise that the routine world of busy offices, backyards, kitchens, parks, and, yes, malls erupts quietly, regularly, and shatters the routine with a truth-enough, an epiphany that gifts the poem (and the world) with provocative revelation.

A nondescript mall, busy with dedicated shoppers, its walkways lined with storefronts hawking sales items, is hardly ground-zero for an epiphany, hardly heavy with the promise of revelation. More likely to get an Orange Julius and a hot pretzel in the food court than a life-altering realization, right? Hoagland is not so sure. In these opening decades of the second millennium, he argues that perhaps what civilizations used to find in churches, that is, an environment ripe for revelation, his contemporary hip and happening post-postmodern consumer culture might indeed find in a mall. The poet certainly goes there without expectation of insight. But insight comes anyhow.

Distracted as he enters the cavernous complex with his young niece, who is eager to shop, he is drawn initially to the cheap televisions displayed in an appliance store.