From the recollections of his youth in Michigan to the visionary longings of the poems written just before his death, Theodore Roethke embarked on a quest to restore wholeness to a self that seemed irreparably broken. In the words of editor Edward Hirsch, “He courted the irrational and embraced what is most vulnerable
"When writing about William Maxwell it is easy to make him sound saintly," declares poet Collier. As an award-winning novelist and short story writer and a 40-year New Yorker editor (working with such luminaries as Eudora Welty, John Hersey and John Cheever), Maxwell, who died four years ago at age 92, had much-valued friendships with
Edward Hirsch’s sixth collection is a descent into the darkness of middle age, narrated with exacting tenderness. He explores the boundaries of human fallibility both in candid personal poems, such as the title piece—a plea for his father, a victim of Alzheimer’s wandering the hallway at night—and in his passionate encounters with classic
A work of art, whether a painting, a dance, a poem, or a jazz composition, can be admired in its own right. But how does the artist actually create his or her work? What is the source of an artist's inspiration? What is the force that impels the artist to set down a
Poet and author Edward Hirsch has built a reputation as an attentive and elegant writer and reader of poetry. Over the course of many collections of poetry and criticism, and the long-running “Poet’s Choice” column in the Washington Post, Hirsch has transformed the quotidian into poetry in his own work, as well as demonstrated his adeptness at
Edward Hirsch was born in Chicago on January 20, 1950, and educated both at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD in folklore. His first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers (Alfred A. Knopf), was published in 1981 and went on to receive the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of
On this edition of HoCoPoLitSo's "The Writing Life," poet Michael Collier and mid-westerner Ed Hirsch huddle in shirt sleeves to talk poetry. Not only American, but international poets he read in translation, says Hirsch, enable him to discover his vocation. From his fifth book of poems On Love, they consider "The Poet at Seven," "Colette,"
J.C. Hallman continues his series of Q&A’s with Story About the Story contributors today with Edward Hirsch. In addition to more than half a dozen books of poems, Edward Hirsch is the author of several books of “creative criticism,” including How to Read a Poem, which is excerpted in The Story About the Story I. Hirsch is president of the
"Hirsch's contribution is significant, [grounded] in the obvious pleasure he has experienced through words. . . . Who could resist the wiles of this poetry-broker-a writer rapidly becoming the baby boomers' preeminent man of letters?" —Detroit Free Press Pages: 368 pages Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (1999) Language: English ISBN-13:978-0156005661 Amazon.com BarnesAndNoble.com Books-A-Million.com IndieBound.com
This collection brims with wide-ranging encounters and explorations, fundamental discoveries, and reconsiderations. It is a book of deep, attentive, and appreciative readings. In Responsive Reading, reading itself is treated as a creative act, an intimate, triggering, and momentous activity. The collection begins with a reconsideration of the "J" author, the most ancient and humanly