The poetry of Janie Hofmann takes its inspiration from many sources, especially mythology and science fiction, which she skillfully blends to present a provocative vision of the way things were, are, and ought to be. She speaks of the never-ending duty of an astronomer:
...Were I to rest one night, what single shred
of comet, tail-spin of star, or tiny key to Cassiopeia
would I miss?
and of human passion:
The heat was a human drum, its skin
pulled tight around us, its heart
underneath our backbones, up inside
the hot rhythm we made between ache and breath.
and of betrayal:
Now shackled, even the shoreline
wounds me. Though I pine
for the sea once again
it never was my friend.
with equal fluidity and depth. She is more than worth an evening under a reading light, pausing, and pondering.