Allen Hoey published two collections of poetry and two novels between 2005 and 2007. In April, 2005, FootHills Publishing released Provençal Light, comprised of three sequences of poems, including seven dramatic monologues in the voice of Vincent Van Gogh and a set of poems involving the life and music of jazz composer and musician Charles Mingus. The Precincts of Paradise, a selection of lyric poems spanning more than two decades, was issued by WordTech Press, under the David Robert Books imprint, in October, 2005. In May, 2006, Chasing the Dragon: A Novel about Jazz was published, and in June, 2007, Voices Beyond the Dead was released. Hoey’s poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, including The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Southern Review. One of his poems, “A Thousand Prostrations,” appeared in Essential Zen (HarperCollins), and “Essay on Snow” appeared in The Best Spiritual Writing 2004 (Houghton Mifflin). Galway Kinnell selected his ms. A Fire in the Cold House of Being for the 1985 Camden Poetry Prize, and the book was published by the Walt Whitman Center in 1987. Other collections include Transfigured Autumn, translations from the German of Georg Trakl; Work the Tongue Could Understand (sonnets); and What Persists. He was 2001 Bucks County Poet Laureate and received a 2002 Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Fellowship. He currently serves as Director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program. (Photo credit: Debra Hoey)
In 1993 he accepted the Precepts as a Rinzai Zen Buddhist from his teacher, Roko Sherry Chayat Ni Osho, Abbot of the Syracuse Zen Center Hoen-ji. He has also studied with Eido Shimano Roshi at Dai Bosatsu Kongo Gi in the Catskills.
Hoey did his undergraduate work at the State University of New York College at Potsdam where he mentored with Kelsie B. Harder. After taking several years off from academe to pursue a career path well beneath almost anyone's radar, he resumed his studies at Syracuse University where he worked extensively with Hayden Carruth in a relationship that has lasted almost thirty years. He received the Cornelia C. Ward Fellowship in Creative Writing and a University Fellowship and graduated with both an MA and a DA in English/Creative Writing.
Allen Hoey published two collections of poetry and two novels between 2005 and 2007. In April, 2005, FootHills Publishing released Provençal Light, comprised of three sequences of poems, including seven dramatic monologues in the voice of Vincent Van Gogh and a set of poems involving the life and music of jazz composer and musician Charles Mingus. The Precincts of Paradise, a selection of lyric poems spanning more than two decades, was issued by WordTech Press, under the David Robert Books imprint, in October, 2005. In May, 2006, Chasing the Dragon: A Novel about Jazz was published, and in June, 2007, Voices Beyond the Dead was released. Hoey’s poems, essays, and translations have appeared in numerous journals, including The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Hudson Review, Poetry, Shenandoah, and The Southern Review. One of his poems, “A Thousand Prostrations,” appeared in Essential Zen (HarperCollins), and “Essay on Snow” appeared in The Best Spiritual Writing 2004 (Houghton Mifflin). Galway Kinnell selected his ms. A Fire in the Cold House of Being for the 1985 Camden Poetry Prize, and the book was published by the Walt Whitman Center in 1987. Other collections include Transfigured Autumn, translations from the German of Georg Trakl; Work the Tongue Could Understand (sonnets); and What Persists. He was 2001 Bucks County Poet Laureate and received a 2002 Pennsylvania Council of the Arts Fellowship. He currently serves as Director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate Program. (Photo credit: Debra Hoey)