Reach for the Stars ~ A Book of Poetry

A Book of Poetry

By Michelle Hoffmann

The world is strange, beautiful, frustrating, funny, frightening, and occasionally absurd.

There is plenty to write about.

Reach for the Stars is an eclectic collection of poetry by Michelle Hoffmann that follows imagination wherever it happens to wander—from the quiet beauty of nature to the farthest reaches of space, and from deeply personal memories to questions about the complicated world we’ve created.

These poems don’t remain in one place for long.

Cats climb trees beneath a bright moon. An old Victrola plays unnoticed at a party. Crows cross the sky with purpose. Lovers meet beneath a great oak. Stars and planets drift through space. Childhood playgrounds sit abandoned. Photographs fade, memories return, storms roll in, and somewhere in the middle of it all, humanity continues trying to understand itself.

Some poems are playful and delightfully strange. Others look toward politics, inequality, technology, freedom, mortality, social upheaval, and the choices we make collectively. There are moments of anger and melancholy alongside humor, hope, magick, love, nature, and the simple pleasures of being alive.

The collection also turns inward, asking questions many of us eventually confront. Are we truly living, or simply repeating the same routines? What do we carry from our past? What happens when the world changes faster than we do? And when tomorrow finally arrives, what will we choose to do with it?

There aren’t always answers here.

Sometimes there is simply a moment worth noticing, an image worth remembering, or an idea strange enough to follow and see where it leads.

Moving between short-form poetry and longer reflections, Reach for the Stars is for readers who like their poetry varied, curious, unconventional, and unafraid to wander beyond the expected.

It is a collection about looking outward and inward at the same time—at cats and flowers, society and memory, storms and stars, yesterday and whatever might be waiting beyond tomorrow.

Because today eventually ends.

And when morning comes, we get another chance to reach for the stars.