PTM: How are you doing today?
Geoffrey Hoffman: I’m not sure what this question means. If it’s about my health, I’m okay, thank you; or as well as can be expected, with a recently broken arm.
PTM: Tell the readers a little about yourself.
Geoffrey Hoffman: I studied English at Oxford, then qualified as a Solicitor (an English lawyer) 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.
I’m happily married, with three daughters. I sing tenor in my synagogue choir, and have led services.
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. Have had three books of poetry published so far—not by vanity publishers!
PTM: How did you “discover” poetry? At what age did the light bulb come on for you, and what poem/poet flipped the switch?
Geoffrey Hoffman: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love the poetry we read at school. At about the age of 12, I found myself writing my own version of Coleridge’s [Rime of the] Ancient Mariner. There followed a gap of about four years, and then the English master (who had inspired me with wild enthusiasm for various poets from Shakespeare to Tennyson) instructed each of those in his class to write a poem. I was caught, and have never since had the faintest desire to stop writing.
PTM: Which poet and/or poem (or collection of poems) most accurately (or acutely) hits you where you live now, and why?
Geoffrey Hoffman: There is no poetry that is specifically relevant to where I now live, but the poets who hit me most acutely are Tennyson, Frost, Pope, and T.S. Eliot. As to why, I can only answer that their verse sings to me. They did not simply set down ideas (though there is plenty of thought in them), but they were in love with language.
PTM: How do you form a poem? Is poetry an organic or synthetic process for you?
Geoffrey Hoffman: An idea or rhythm or line strikes a chord in me, and I feel driven to expand on it. Being English, I am not familiar with all American technical terms, so I’m not sure how you distinguish between organic and synthetic poetry. I would guess that mine is closer to what you call “organic”: once something has triggered the poetry in me, I feel compelled to continue.
PTM: Where do you write? Is ambiance important? Do you have rituals or habits when you write?
Geoffrey Hoffman: I write wherever I am when the instinct takes me. This is often when I am listening to classical music, and am carried away by the melody or rhythm. When sitting in the Appeal Court, where my role was that of a glorified Court Clerk, I sometimes found myself writing poetry when I should have been paying attention to the appeal being heard by the judges behind me! Sometimes poetry is triggered by thoughts arising from a particular scene; sometimes by boredom. Very occasionally, while I am in bed, waiting to fall asleep, lines of verse will stream through my head, and have to be written down or lost. Ambiance, in the sense of the atmosphere of a place, is irrelevant to me except as implied above. Rituals and habits do not apply.
PTM: In the balance between found language and created language, where does your work fall? Do you use many sources?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Here again I suspect you are using American technical terms. Normally I use ordinary educated English; but occasionally I take the traditional liberty of poets in every age—of coining new words, either because no existing word fits my meaning, or because I find the new word useful or attractive or just plain fun. Similarly, I generally keep to traditional punctuation and grammar, though for particular purposes I sometimes depart from both. To quote myself—What does it matter how poets write, so long as they write well?
As for sources, my poems are generally original, but I have written one or two skits on well-known verses, or quoted from them (with appropriate acknowledgments). I have written a version, in what I hope is English poetry, of the German verses set in Schubert’s song-cycles; and a modern version of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, about holiday-makers stranded in an airport.
PTM: When you got started, did you have doubts about your writing ability?
Geoffrey Hoffman: I hope this does not seem too vain, but I have never had doubts about my writing ability. However, I used to show verses to my late mother, who was a brilliant teacher and literary critic, and she helped identify the odd verbal contradictions or slips into illogicality in what I had written. Nowadays I sometimes consult my wife or a friend about any doubts I have.
PTM: In what genre are you most comfortable writing?
Geoffrey Hoffman: I have no favourite genre. I have tried my hand at legal satire, general comic verse, poems about nature, travel, philosophy, odd thoughts (I call this the poetry of ideas), poetry about poetry, narrative verse: you name it, I have tried it. Often my lines are traditional rhyming or blank verse. Others are free verse or otherwise modernistic. Verse without punctuation, etc., can sometimes be used to advantage—for example, when the subject of the poem is chaos.
Two genres I dislike intensely are adolescent verse exploring the depths of personal neuroses, and obscenity—delighting in what is most unpleasant or disgusting—written out of a desire to shock the reader (who has read it all before, and is most likely to be put off reading further). Nor do I like modernism for the sake of modernism, since cutting all punctuation and making nonsense of the syntax and grammar is often just a convention, and makes it difficult to understand the meaning of the verse.
PTM: How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
Geoffrey Hoffman: My environment is that of England, which has obviously influenced my description of natural scenes and town life, and once led me to write a song-cycle without words about a drive from London to the north of Scotland. My background in the Courts gave rise to my first book, Trial by Verse, about the law and lawyers of this country.
As for my upbringing, the study of English at University gave me a knowledge of Anglo-Saxon and medieval English literature, which I have imitated on a number of occasions. My Jewish upbringing has clearly colored (or “coloured,” as we spell it in the UK) my thinking and the philosophy in my second book, The Jewish Pilgrimage.
PTM: Is there a side of yourself that you didn’t know existed until you started writing?
Geoffrey Hoffman: The sheer excitement of creativity.
PTM: What, in your opinion, are the most important elements of good writing?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Sensitivity to the sound, rhythm, and flow of language. Also, an ability to think and to express thoughts in a memorable way. For verse to become poetry, it must excite the reader. A poem must have something worth saying, and say it in a stirring fashion. What matters is not how emotional you feel, but how well you express it. The best poetry demands to be quoted. The worst is padded out with lines that are quickly forgotten. Never be satisfied with the second-best. If you just feel that a line “will do,” it is most unlikely to be great poetry. It is vital to reconsider, correct, edit, and improve what one has written, over and over again.
Whether I have ever lived up to my own ideals is a matter of opinion!
PTM: Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, what do you do about it?
Geoffrey Hoffman: There have been years when I have felt driven to write almost every day. Then there have followed long periods—anything from six months to two years— when I feel completely written out, and can write nothing. I have never found anything I can do to end these blank periods. They usually end of their own accord, when a new subject excites me.
PTM: What tools do you feel are must-haves for writers?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Even today, pen and paper are vital for the scribbling down of drafts. The computer is a wonderful aid to editing, since you can print out a new version within seconds, instead of writing the poem out in full every time you have a minor correction. In the hunt for the ideal word, a thesaurus and rhyming dictionary can be a great help, though they could not strictly be described as “must-haves.” A dictionary can also be useful, to ensure that you don’t misuse or misspell a word.
PTM: Of your own poetry, do you have a favorite?
Geoffrey Hoffman: This varies. At the moment it could be one of a number of poems from my unpublished book of song-cycles without music, After Schubert. Sometimes it will be a particular poem about the natural world, or a poem exploring an idea, or an extract from one of the other books I have prepared.
PTM: How has having your writings published changed you?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Well, obviously, it has given me a sense of achievement and excitement, and a feeling that my life may have been worthwhile. It has changed my life in giving me hours of tiring work, day after day, in communicating with advertisers, book-sellers etc.—hours that could have been better spent in writing.
PTM: How difficult was it to get your first book published? How did you go about it? What was the feeling after your first book deal? Could you briefly describe your feelings when you saw the first copy of your book?
Geoffrey Hoffman: My first book was legal satire, and many of the individual poems had been published in a magazine called Local Government Review. The publisher of that magazine was also a publisher of legal books—not poetry—so I wrote to him and with some difficulty persuaded him to publish a collection of my legal verse. I was delighted with the result.
After that, I just continued writing poetry of different kinds, without thinking about publication, until my retirement. It then came as a shock to realize that about 600 non-legal poems I had written would be lost forever, if I did not do something about finding a publisher. It became obvious that I had no contacts, and that English poetry publishers had very few vacancies for unknown poets. In desperation, I turned to the internet, and found an American publisher who speedily accepted my next two books. When the first of these was accepted and issued, I can only describe my feeling as a profound thrill.
PTM: You currently have three books published. Could you tell us a little about them?
Geoffrey Hoffman: The first was Trial by Verse. Comic and satiric verse about the law and its makers and practitioners, it was published by 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. I was interviewed about it, and read extracts, on Three Counties Radio.
Second was The Jewish Pilgrimage, an exploration of reality, mainly in verse. It 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. I call it a poetry of ideas, because it explores problems and sets out conjectures. Inevitably it is controversial. It is in poetry because I find 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. I hope this will appeal to readers of whatever religious background. [It has received] two favourable reviews, one by an American reviewer, the other on behalf of the Council of Christians and Jews.
My third book was Steps into Poetry, consisting of nonsense and other verse for children. 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 of all these books may be ordered on-line from www.amazon.com, or BarnesandNoble.com.
PTM: How did you come up with the titles? What are the reactions to The Jewish Pilgrimage?
As for the titles, I thought and thought, till inspiration struck. The book received two reviews, the first by an American reviewer, Lillian Brummet. She wrote that “the author…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.” [I don’t know why she refers to astrological colors. I don’t believe in astrology, but I do refer to stars of brilliant colors, and presumably that was what she had in mind.]
The second review was by the Rev. Jonathan Gorski, and was published in Common Ground, the Journal of the Council of Christians and Jews. He summed it up as follows: “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.”
PTM: Are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share with us? (We’d love to hear all about them!)
Geoffrey Hoffman: During the years when I was writing without bothering to look for a publisher, I prepared a number of books of poetry that have not yet been published, each on a different theme. They are
Journeys into Verse: poems about, or arising out of travel;
Poetry about Poetry;
Sunlight and Starlight: a modern poetry of nature and imagination;
The Poetry of Ideas;
After Schubert: song cycles without music, inspired by the music of Schubert;
A Muse Amused: comic verse; and
Poetry Uncategorised.
I am now some 34 poems into another collection, provisionally entitled Poetry After October.
PTM: What dreams have been realized as a result of your writing? Any special memories that you would like to share?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Only the dream of being a published author. No special memories.
PTM: What authors do you think influenced you the most?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Hundreds of authors, from the Bible, Homer, and Virgil, a number of writers in French and German, and almost all English poets from the Anglo-Saxons to the present time. Having said that, I must admit to being unable to appreciate some poets—Browning, for example. At different times I have been particularly influenced by different individuals, but there are no special influences today.
PTM: Support: how important is it, who were your primary supporters growing up, and how were they able to keep you encouraged?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Considerable support and encouragement were always given to me by my wife and my late mother. This was important to me as a human being, but I am sure that even without them I would have gone on writing.
PTM: Name one entity that you feel supported you, outside of family members.
Geoffrey Hoffman: Ian Brydon, a friend I first came to know at work. We have kept in touch since my retirement. He has written a fair amount of light verse of his own, and has helped me with encouragement, criticism, and practical suggestions, and even with occasional lines of his own writing, which I have been happy with his consent to adopt, incorporate in my own verse, and acknowledge as his.
PTM: If you could leave your readers with one legacy, what would you want it to be?
Geoffrey Hoffman: My poetry, of course; and if I had to choose from that, it would probably be the book Sunlight and Starlight.
PTM: Do you have any advice for other writers inspired to be published?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Don’t do what I did in connection with my non-legal poetry, and be so wound up in writing that years pass before you do anything about looking for a publisher. Once you have started looking, never give up. The best way to track down publishers is undoubtedly the internet.
PTM: Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Geoffrey Hoffman: Years ago I wrote what would almost amount to a thesis for a doctorate, in an attempt to define poetry as distinct from verse, and how it should be written. The following is a summary of some of my conclusions. I hope your readers find it persuasive:
Poetry is that quality in written composition which arouses or evokes a certain class of reaction in the reader—a sense of heightened and excited awareness. It works through the emotions, the intellect, the aural and visual senses, though these four media need not all be emphasized to the same degree. The type of poem does not matter, so long as this excitement is produced. Poetry is a blend of different elements into an evocative whole.
You might also have asked, “Where can the reader find more examples of your poetry?” The answer would have been, from www.universallove.co.uk and www.ArtistsILove.com or my own website, www.publishedauthors.net/geoffbarcarolle/index.html
Based Artist Aristeo Jaure is looking for God. He does not restrict his search to churches, the Bible ,or the night sky. He looks for the signs and messages of divinity in his own work, paintings and drawings that reflect the human condition, often painfully.
Anita Ferrer is an artist, but she is just as likely to describe herself as an over-comer. Her triumph over childhood abuse, domestic vio lence, and chronic illness, as well as her strong sense of faith, infuse her work.
