Overview

As a multigenerational machinist, Ivan Hobson's debut poetry collection provides insight into generations of working-class families and their communities. Drawing from memory and oral histories, these poems not only explore Hobson's personal experiences, but also larger aspects of the American blue-collar experience. While many of the poems focus on the machine shop environment, its people, and their struggles after the shop closes, boiled down, this book is a coming-of-age story about a vulnerable young man, his relationship with his father, and the many lessons learned from family. This book contains illustrations from the artist, Earl Thollander, a Californian artist, illustrator, and author who is best known for his painting, sketching, and travel book writing. Earl earned his bachelor's degree from the University of California, and later attended San Francisco Art Institute and the Academy of Art. Earl had a great interest in traveling and started making artwork that related to the different parts of the world he visited. He became renowned for his unique drawing and painting style, often exploring the Napa Valley. In his career, Earl authored and illustrated more than 62 travel, cooking, and children's books, including Back Roads of California, Earl Thollander's San Francisco, School for Julio, and Sunset Cookbook.

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9781956578072

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Reviews

Ivan Hobson's Cutting Teeth is an ode to the natural world and an elegy for the poet's past: his home, his father: They taught me / to grind into the millionths, / split tenths on the micrometer; / taught me to play cribbage, / to speak so people could see my eyes. These poems are all heart. And Ivan Hobson has put his heart at risk to write them. -Jericho Brown, The Tradition I have been excited to watch Ivan's career. He is a thoughtful, attentive, and conscientious poet who brings important ideas to the table and extends the conversation beyond the small confines of the page. His searching eye and open heart reveal so many possibilities for how to love a hurting world. -Camille Dungy, Trophic Cascade This book is brilliant as a snow globe-with its glowy well-lit family scene: the house, the fence, the tall tall trees-shaken up. Hobson looks back at a quieter time and focuses his gaze, goes granular. It was not that quiet. His gaze is sharp and wise. His heart is strong. History is better because of poets like him. You will be too, when you read this book. -Kevin Rabas, Poet Laureate of Kansas (2017-19), More Than Words

Author Information

Ivan Hobson is an MFA graduate from San Francisco State University. Along with teaching English at Diablo Valley College, he works as a shipyard machinist in Alameda, California. Ivan's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications, including the North American Review, Hunger Mountain, The Midwest Quarterly, as well as Ted Kooser and The Poetry Foundation's American Life in Poetry.

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