Breath Mark by Christy Hoff
Publisher: Cyberwit.net (May 28, 2025)
Language: English
Softcover, 72 pages
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 978-93-6354-484-0
Reviewed by: Scott McConnaha
A thoughtful exploration of one’s place and purpose in the continuum of life
In the very first poem, Christy Hoff voices the questions of all poets: What to say? What matters? To what do I give voice? Her answer to this universal query is expressed beautifully throughout the ensuing pages of Breath Mark. While the poem structures vary from playful, lyrical, conversational, and even a little experimental, the one quality they all possess is honesty.
Organized in four distinct sections, Hoff’s poems reveal a courageous vulnerability as she explores a longing for the past, wariness for the future, a desire to know her place in the continuum of life, aging in a world that is at times unrecognizable, and the joys and heartaches that accompany all meaningful relationships. In the poem “A Bridge,” Hoff imagines herself as a connector between generations and the conduit for us, her readers, to make it to the proverbial other side. This is the role she’s artfully assumed as a poet.
Anyone with pages of poem ideas will smile and nod at “Yesterday’s Muse” for the truth it speaks about the all-too-familiar fleeting quality of inspiration. Yesterday’s brilliant ideas become today’s “watercolor painting / After it’s been raining. / Leaving outlines / I can no longer fill.” Yet despite this frustration, Hoff reveals plenty of inspired creativity in these 43 poems.
The gift I’ve received by pondering Hoff’s collection is a desire to be more deliberate in stripping away all the noise of our technologically burdened world, leaning on faith to make it through the hurts, and to open myself up to a more meaningful relationship with the world. The poem “Genesis” conveys this sentiment well: “Seek outside my comfort zone / Find folks whose ways are not my own. / Help others in any way I can / At least try to understand / my part in humanity.”
Reviewer Scott McConnaha is a former teacher, editor, and healthcare administrator. He and his wife live in Plymouth, Wis., and have four children and two grandchildren. Scott has master’s degrees in English and theology and an MBA. He is the author of a poetry chapbook titled Without a Prayer, and his work has appeared in Mobius, The Avocet, Door is a Jar, New Verse News, and Moss Piglet, among other publications. Much of his work can found on his Substack page, Hopping off Here.
