This chapbook documents a trip from Utah to Argentina in three brief chapters, each with a poem, an essay, a photograph, and epigraphs taken from the work of poet Pablo Neruda. The first section, \u201cPunta Norte,\u201d describes a wildlife preserve on the Pen\u00ednsula Vald\u00e9s in Argentina which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site established for the conservation of marine mammals and also a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site of International Importance. Hoffmann calls it a \u201cpre-erotic landscape,\u201d although the sea contains the fecundity of evolution. \u201cThere is no consummation in these winds,\u201d he writes, \u201cno sense of fruition, no feeling of relief.\u201d The place reminds him of the wide sage plains of Utah\u2019s Great Basin.<\/p>\n
In 2009, Argentine tango was added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In chapter two, Hoffman encounters \u201cTango\u201d in a Buenos Aires caf\u00e9 as a \u201ctourist thing\u201d that his two colleagues disdainfully ignore.\u00a0 But Hoffmann is drawn in: \u201cI was attracted to the moves, to the line of the man\u2019s shoulders and the bare muscles of his partner\u2019s back,\u201d he writes. \u00a0As a non-dancer, he is not entirely sure what he\u2019s seeing, \u201cthe dancers were fluid enough, but the dance is so much about form and tradition that it\u2019s easy to space out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it? My own first encounter with tango was more like an electric shock. I couldn\u2019t decipher how they were doing it, but I burned to know the secret. \u00a0Hoffmann speculates, \u201ccould it be that, rather than her replying in kind to his lead, she resists?\u201d\u00a0 And yes, resistance is part of the dance. The leader opens or closes off space; the follower agrees or resists the invitation and so exerts control over the pace and mood of the dance. Ultimately, the tango works its magic on Hoffman, awakening a post-erotic landscape of memory, \u201can unfathomable flicker within a cavern of dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Great Salt Lake in Utah is a Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network site of Hemispheric Importance.\u00a0 The photo illustrating the third chapter,\u00a0At the Edge and End of Water,<\/em>\u00a0shows empty boat slips at the Great Salt Lake Marina where, due to persistent drought, water levels have sunk too low for boats to float.\u00a0 The accompanying essay speaks of an ache, \u201cvast stretches of drought,\u201d \u201cdry creeks of the heart,\u201d and\u00a0el dolor infinito<\/em>, \u201cconfirmed in the shrinking of glaciers, seasons without rain.\u201d<\/p>\n This brief work as a whole, then, speaks to the incredible richness of human and natural heritage, responding with a kind of grief for the world as these precious places and intangibles reveal their vulnerability. The salty lakes seem barren despite the life they support; tenuous human connections break when, \u201cpeople leave our lives with little warning.\u201d<\/p>\n For Hoffmann, the trip to Argentina seems to have opened up a kind of deep-felt sadness that became this book.<\/p>\n