It’s four years this month since the poet Tony Hoagland died. Turn Up the Ocean was published posthumously this year.

The blurb on the back says ‘Over the course of his celebrated career, Tony Hoagland ventured fearlessly into the unlit alleys of emotion and experience. The poems [ … ] examine with mordant wit the reality of living and dying in a time and culture that conspire to erase our inner lives.’

The mordant wit can be found in some of the titles:

• Four Beginnings for an Apocalyptic Novel of Manners

• Why I Like the Hospital

• On Why I Must Decline To Receive The Prayers You Say You Are Constantly Sending

The last few lines of this poem are:

And could you stop burning so many candles, please?

My god, think how many hours and hours and hours –
think of how hard those bees worked
to make all that wax!

Hoagland’s poems often go just over the page and here are the last few lines of Gorgon:

Your job is to stay calm.
Your job is to watch and take notes,
to go on looking.

Your job is to not be turned into stone.