John Hoffman, 26

Poet | Malibu, California

Growing up in Malibu, John Hoffman learned early that proximity to fame doesn’t guarantee meaning. The son of two world-renowned film producers, Hoffman was raised amid premieres, private screenings, and the quiet machinery of Hollywood success. But while his parents shaped stories for the screen, Hoffman turned inward—toward language, restraint, and the precise violence of a well-placed line break.

Now in his mid-twenties, Hoffman is emerging as one of the most quietly compelling poetic voices of his generation.

His work—often spare, oceanic, and emotionally unsparing—draws from the liminal spaces of his upbringing: beaches at dusk, empty houses after wrap parties, the loneliness of being surrounded by adults whose lives were lived in public. Rather than reject his background, Hoffman interrogates it. His poems explore inheritance, absence, masculinity, and the strange grief of growing up adjacent to spectacle without ever fully belonging to it.

“I wasn’t interested in writing about fame,” Hoffman has said. “I was interested in writing about what fame leaves behind.”

Hoffman began writing seriously as a teenager, retreating to notebooks while his peers chased the mythology of Los Angeles. He studied poetry informally, favoring small workshops, independent presses, and long stretches of solitude over institutional prestige. That choice has paid off: his work has circulated widely online, been featured in respected literary journals, and shared across social platforms by readers who describe his poems as “uncomfortably intimate” and “devastating in their quietness.”

Unlike many artists with Hollywood lineage, Hoffman has resisted easy crossover. He does not brand himself as a celebrity poet, nor does he leverage his last name for access. Instead, he publishes selectively, performs rarely, and lets the work speak first. The result is a growing audience that feels earned rather than inherited.

What distinguishes Hoffman is not just his writing, but his refusal to overshare. In an era of maximalism and constant self-exposure, his poems withhold as much as they reveal. Silence, in his work, is an active force. Lines break where answers should be. Meaning lingers just offshore.

Critics and editors point to Hoffman’s discipline—his willingness to cut, refine, and discard—as a mark of long-term promise. “He writes like someone who isn’t in a rush,” one editor noted. “That’s rare at any age.”

Looking ahead, Hoffman is currently assembling his first full-length poetry collection while continuing to live between Malibu and Los Angeles. He has expressed interest in future collaborations across film and art, but only on his own terms. For now, poetry remains the center.

In a family known for producing cultural moments, John Hoffman is doing something quieter—and arguably more difficult: building a voice that belongs solely to him.

At 26, he’s not chasing the spotlight. He’s rewriting what it means to grow up inside it.