The Whole Nine Yards offers poems spanning the career of former Poet Laureate Daniel Hoffman. These explore violence and transcendence in realistic, gothic, and comic modes, as they tell of war, cold war, domestic violence, bureaucratic oppression, and a compassionate rescue at sea. Searching and lyrical suites celebrate the births of children, recoup a year in wartime France, and meditate on life and death, the seen and the unseen. Hoffman aims to share the pleasures of dramatizing language, theme, and form in dimensions new to his work. The result is a compelling collection from a distinguished poet.