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Customer Reviews (6)

A poet chooses and offers insight.
These 130 columns written for the Washington Post Book World present a fascinating view of the breadth of world poetry and insight into the mind of a well read poet.The essays and poems are topical or biographical and include familiar topics such as Nightingales ("Perhaps I never heard you, but my life \ is bound up with your life, inseparably" Jorge Luis Borge) or Self Portraits ("Sick of being decent, he craves another \ crash.What reaches him except disaster? Frank Bidart).Looking at untypical subjects of poems we see Hirsh's insight for example on swimming "Kumin's poem .. finds a deeply religious element in the act of immersion." .Hirsh at time seems to offer psychological clarity "Grossman's poetry seems haunted by the Freudian idea that a son's poetic work should fulfill his mother's spoken (and unspoken) desires"). The poets span the world from Polish Czeslaw Milosz ("There was no thing on earth I wanted to posses."), to Yiddish Kadya Molodowsky ("Merciful God, /Choose another people/ Elect another") to Nebraskan Ted Kooser. So this book offers a good anthology of poets along with Hirsch's commentary which helps make the poems meaningful.

Near-perfect Anthology
Other compilers or "editors" of similar collections, anthologies, or selected poems of single poets can look to Hirsch's "Poet's Choice" as a great model for their publications.Not just replications of poems collected or uncollected, Poet's Choice is instructional and pleasurable by way of the author-editor's personal comments re: his "favorites," the similarities and differences among poetic styles, nuances, etc.This book offers fine selections, but much more.

Valuable Insights by a Master Poetry Reviewer
Hungry for tips on where to find brilliant, cutting-edge poets?Eager to learn about highly-talented poets with much to say wonderfully on human issues?Then buy Edward Hirsch's Poet's Choice and enjoy yourself.Each of his short chapters (three pages each!) introduces the reader to outstanding poets from around the world who have found their voices in personal catastrophe, ethnicity, life-altering experience, or sudden insight.After reading Hirsch's outstanding critiques of stunningly gifted, mostly 20th-Century poets, you'll want to buy their selected or collected works.And Hirsch's sensitive, evocative explanations of the poets' lives and poetic techniques are educational and motivational all by themselves.Hirsch, a respected poet himself, gives us lines like this one from his wistful chapter comparing poems and birdsongs:"There is something irrational in poetry, which still trembles with a holy air."And, in his chapter on the angst-driven love poems of Jane Mayhall, "There is something holy and crazed about an intensely personal grief."Hey, I'm more than ready for Poet's Choice, Part 2!

Poetry: "There has never been a civilization without it."


Always relevant, poetry addresses the great themes of our lives, love, loss, the modern terrors of a post 9/11 world, the scourge of war and a hope for peace. Tackling every human emotion and universal concept, poetry "puts us in touch with ourselves" as we interpret the words of the poets, personalizing and processing. This collection addresses every aspect of life, from the general to the personal perspective, our marginalized society, our place in the grand scheme of things and an ongoing dialog with history from the perspective of our own experiences. The poem is the sound of humanity, the voice of yearning and hope, restoring us to an increasingly alienating world, a private corner of the universe where we find comfort and expression.

Poet's Choice is not just another collection of great poems, but a more intimate format, the author speaking to the landscape of poetry, the language of each selection, shared anecdotes, bits of information that render each work uniquely accessible: Jorge Luis Borges' "Nightingale"; Rabindranath Tagore's "Final Poems"; Nellie Sachs' "Butterfly"; Xuan Quynh's "Summer"; Pablo Neruda's "Body of a Woman" and "Walking Around", to name but a few. This is poetry in its natural context, complex, universally appealing. Thoughtfully assembled, the poets speak the language of the world, past and present, an anthology that begs for a permanent place on a desk or bedside table, an island of personal exploration that expands souls and heals the battered heart.

"And so
it has taken me
all of sixty years
to understand
that water is the finest drink,
and bread the most delicious food,
and that art is worthless
unless it plants
a measure of splendor in people's hearts." (Taha Muhammad Ali)

To absorb the depth of these poems is to appreciate the differences inherent in the world we inhabit, elevating the consciousness and reaching for the finer self, one with the universe in human experience and the source of hope. Luan Gaines/ 2006.

The Best Poetry Anthology Ever?
I prefer anthologies for my intermittent poetry reading jags, so the role of editor is important. And after looking through POET'S CHOICE, I think that a case could be made that Edward Hirsch is the most auspicious choice for poetry editor/scholar that one could make.

In POET'S CHOICE, Hirsch has brought together material from his "Poet's Choice" columns to run alongside both international poems (which comprise one half of the book) and the work of American poets (the other half.) POET'S CHOICE is further organized into chapters exploring subgenres of poetry that a layperson would not ordinarily encounter. The odd thing is, Hirsch's introductory essays are so good, one can spend as much time enjoying his prose as the poems themselves!

By providing this accessible context and thought-provoking analysis with terrific poetry, Hirsch has compiled a truly excellent book. It's sublime reading both for the short term and for the long haul as well.

Just for fun, the following is a poem by the late William Matthews, which lays out the "Four Subjects of Poetry":

1. I went out in the woods today, and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious.
2. We're not getting any younger.
3. It sure is cold and lonely...
(a.) without you, honey.
(b.) with you, honey.
4. Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice-verse, and in any case, it is too soon spent, and on what, we know not what. ... Read more

Product Description
A rich and significant collection of more than one hundred poems, drawn from a lifetime of “wild gratitude” in poetry.

In poems chronicling insomnia (“the blue-rimmed edge / of outer dark, those crossroads / where we meet the dead”), art and culture (poems on Edward Hopper and Paul Celan, love poems in the voices of Baudelaire and Gertrude Stein, a meditation on two suitcases of children’s drawings that came out of the Terezin concentration camp), and his own experience, including the powerful, frank self-examinations in his more recent work, Edward Hirsch displays stunning range and quality. Repeatedly confronting the darkness, his own sense of godlessness (“Forgive me, faith, for never having any”), he also struggles with the unlikely presence of the divine, the power of art to redeem human transience, and the complexity of relationships. Throughout the collection, his own life trajectory enriches the poems; he is the “skinny, long-beaked boy / who perched in the branches of the old branch library,” as well as the passionate middle-aged man who tells his lover, “I wish I could paint you— / . . . / I need a brush for your hard angles / and ferocious blues and reds. / . . . / I wish I could paint you / from the waist down.”

Grieving for the losses occasioned by our mortality, Hirsch’s ultimate impulse as a poet is to praise—to wreathe himself, as he writes, in “the living fire” that burns with a ferocious intensity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

New and old poems by Edward Hirsch
//The Living Fire// is a collection of new and old poems by famous American poet Edward Hirsch. Current president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Hirsch has published popular poetry collections for over three decades. This new collection brings to readers new poems, as well as a comprehensive selection of poems from his previous collections, spanning a period of 1975 to 2010. A formidable compilation!

The title of //The Living Fire// comes from one of his most celebrated poems, Wild Gratitude. Readers will enjoy this timelessly radiant poem, as well as poems like Dark Tour, Milk, Song, Transfigured Night, The Widening Sky, Special Orders, and I Wish I Could Paint You. Readers must do everything possible to read the poem Two Suitcases of Children's Drawings from Terezin, 1942-1944. I also enjoyed his poems on insomnia--the cold reality he captures of what it means to be unable to truly rest at night. Poets and poetry students and teachers will find //The Living Fire// a priceless addition to their pool of poetic resources and inspiration.

Reviewed by: Viola Allo

A Must-Read Collection
Full of praise and lament, wisdom, heartache and joy, these superbly-crafted poems remind us why Edward Hirsch is one of our best poets, and why The Living Fire is a thrilling masterpiece that's impossible to put down. Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
In these powerful and “achingly beautiful” (Booklist) poems of self-examination and openness from one of the cornerstones of the poetry world, Edward Hirsch assesses “the minor triumphs, the major failures” of his life, and the people and places that have colored it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Body of Work
I have read his stuff for over 20 years and it always hits home. The beauty is that you see Hirsch in all stages of life:child, young man, and now creeping beyond middle life, "I'm now more than halfway to the grave/but I'm not half the man I meant to become." The reflections on his father are only the type of reflections that come from the perspective of age and are deeply moving. A sadness permeates the collection.I wish there were a few more poems of hope and adaptation---another "Memorandums of my Affection." But no matter. He shows us the universal through his life. Worthwhile.

Poignant and Universal
Edward Hirsch, a longtime teacher of creative writing at the University of Houston, was recently interviewed on NPR on the occasion of the publication of his recent book of poetry, Special Orders. While all poems in a volume of poetry are rarely of equal attraction to a reader, this slim collection comes close. Dealing with the issue of loss in its many expressions and origins, this is, nevertheless, not a depressing collection. It is more a book of gentle sadness and retrospection, rather than unremitting and savage pain, in confronting issues we all eventually must address.Especially evocative, the opening poems, Special Orders and Cotton Candy, vividly paint sensory images of long past and cherished moments that we all can touch a personal version of in memory. Self-Portrait and A Few Encounters with My Face are strong and express well the sad confusion of standing in the bathroom at 3 a.m. and wondering "Who is that moonlit stranger staring at me through the fog of a bathroom mirror." Recommended.

Pleasant read
I heard Hirsch on NPR and decided to buy his book. I like the first section best, where he describes people, places and events. Poems about his interior monolgue are less interesting.

Accessible, Sensitive, Moving...
I found this beautiful collection of poems deeply moving, and curiously comforting.I believe anyone growing older and regretting missed opportunities, and missed friends and family, will appreciate the simplicity and skill of these poems.NOT a book of poems about Death, but a clear demonstration of the value of remembering and observing things going on around us.A sensitive gift for yourself and your best friends.

A Breakthrough for Edward Hirsch
With hard work and luck, every once in a while an artist may be struck by the kind of creative lightning that results in a breakthrough work, which is at once startlingly new and large, even while retaining the artist's distinctive and recognizable voice.Edward Hirsch's new book, Special Orders, is such a work.

In broad outlines, the poems in Special Orders recount a man's paralyzing crisis of spirit brought on by a life deeply lived and considered, yet unfulfilled. From this point of crisis, the poet leads us on a journey through a dark land of confusion and self-loathing, until - redeemed by love - we arrive at a new place of enlightened and exuberant optimism.Hirsch's art makes the crisis feel real, the journey persuasive, and the enlightenment earned.

What is new and remarkable about Special Orders is its deeply personal story, and the stripped down and urgent language with which Hirsch tells it.Along the way from crisis to exultation, the poems in Special Orders reveal the artist adapting his powers to a new challenge.Mr. Hirsch has always won praise for his mastery of poetic technique and form, and for his ability to inhabit a wide range of personae.But in Special Orders, he stands naked in his own skin, and speaks in the voice of an American everyman.And yet, through the new poems, there are the trademarks of what make Hirsch a distinctive and important artist - the richness of metaphor, the breadth of learning and inquiry, the sheer intellectual and artistic daring.

This is a poet at the top of his game. ... Read more

Product Description
"Life has to have the plenitude of art," Edward Hirsch affirms in his fifth volume of poems, On Love, which further establishes him as a major artist. From its opening epigraph by Thomas Hardy and an initiating prayer for transformation, On Love takes up the subjects of separateness and fusion, autonomy and blur. The initial progression of fifteen shapely and passionate lyrics (including a sonnet about the poet at seven, a villanelle about the loneliness of a pioneer woman on the prairie, and an elegy for Amy Clampitt) opens out into a sequence of meditations about love. These arresting love poems are spoken by a gallery of historical figures from Denis Diderot, Heinrich Heine, Charles Baudelaire, and Ralph Waldo Emerson to Gertrude Stein, Federico Garcia Lorca, Zora Neale Hurston, and Colette. Each anatomizes a different aspect of eros in poems uttered by a chorus of historical authorities that is also a lone lover's yearning voice. Personal, literary, On Love offers the most formally adept and moving poetry by the author Harold Bloom hails as utterly fresh, canonical, and necessary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Out Of Love
A guy fell in love with me.I sort of liked him.He gave me this book because he figured a poet like myself would enjoy it.And I did enjoy some of it, but not very much of it.The poor guy, he should've given me something else--some Yeats or Shelley instead.After this read, he didn't stand a chance.In all fairness, Hirsch is a good poet on most days, but this collection fell way flat for me.He should stick to the stuff he knows best, rather than trying to make an obvious seller for Valentine's Day.

Eloquent, passionate, unsettling
It's apparent that some people find the "Lectures on Love" series of poems forced and prentious.I don't agree that these poems "sound like Hirsch"; instead, I find myself astonished at howvaried the voices are-- in addition, I think that Hirsch remains true tothe voices of the characters/writers he inhabits.(This is particularlytrue of the Baudelaire poem.)But the most impressive aspect of thesepoems in their formal integrity-- and they are very difficult and orginalforms that Hirsch employs!Also, the poem "The Painting of Pan"is fabulous-- it is one of the most unsettlingly sensual poems I've everread. Check it out.

Yet Another Review
I must politely disagree with my fellow readers. I enjoyed Edward Hirsch's new book, On Love, completely. This poet, Edward Hirsch, has continued, unabatedly, to define successfully what it means to be human in an ofteninhumane world. If not for any other reason, I find it important to readhis poems for this very reason-- for finding such wisdom has become rare,indeed. And in this collection of poems, as were present in his otherbooks, there are moments of undeniable beauty. I was left speechless by hispoem for Amy Clampitt, entitled Iowa Flora, and the poem Blue Hydrangea,among others. I believe this collection of poems to complement hisever-growing and ambitious oeuvre. I would suggest this book to any friendwho was interested in reading great poetry in a time when great poetry ismore harder to find than ever.

Nothing special
I am sorry, but I cannot agree with the person from Houston (Hirsch's hometown).This book is pretty bad.The scheme of the book is forced, and the lecture series "on love" is just awful.All the famous people dredged up from the past sound like caricatures or like Hirsch. Overly academic and many times trite, this book is an example of how one'sreputation can sometimes land you a book contract.If this book weren'twritten by Edward Hirsch, it wouldn't have been published, much less byAlfred Knopf.

Disappointing
Edward Hirsch, once a better than average middle-voiced poet, has gone terribly wrong with "On Love."The lectures on love in the voices of the famous dead lie dead on the page, victims of their owngrandstanding.(And I must say that the villanelle in the first section ofthe book is one of the clumsiest in recent memory.)No amount ofcomplicated forms and co-opted voices can disguise that this book ismisguided and flawed. ... Read more

Product Description
How to Read a Poem is an unprecedented exploration of poetry and feeling. In language at once acute and emotional, distinguished poet and critic Edward Hirsch describes why poetry matters and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message can make a difference. In a marvelous reading of verse from around the world, including work by Pablo Neruda, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath, among many others, Hirsch discovers the true meaning of their words and ideas and brings their sublime message home into our hearts. A masterful work by a master poet, this brilliant summation of poetry and human nature will speak to all readers who long to place poetry in their lives.
Amazon.com Review
Edward Hirsch's primer may very well inspire readers to catch the nextflight for Houston and sign up for any and all of his courses. Not fornothing does this attentive and adoring poet-teacher title his book Howto Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry; Hirsch's big guide togetting the most out of this form is packed with inspiring examples andthousands of epigrams and allusions. Above all, he is intent on poetry'sphysical and emotional power. In chapters devoted to the lyric, thenarrative, the poetry of sorrow, of ecstasy, of witness, Hirsch continuallyconveys the sheer ecstasy of this vital act of communication. (He takes us,for instance, with great care and mounting excitement, through EmilyBrontë's "Spellbound," which he discovered at age 8 when "baseballseason was over for the year.") Above all, there is the thrill of discoveryas Hirsch offers up works by artists ranging from Anna Akhmatova to WaltWhitman, Elizabeth Bishop to Adam Zagajewski, and everyone in between. Idefy you not to fall in love with Wislawa Szymborska on the basis of "TheJoy of Writing," which begins:

Why does this written doe bound through these written woods?
For a drink of written water from a spring
whose surface will xerox her soft muzzle?
Why does she lift her head; does she hear something?
Perched on four slim legs borrowed from the truth,
she pricks up her ears beneath my fingertips.

Hirsch manages to cram entire worlds and lives into 258 pages of text(which he follows up with a huge glossary and extended reading list). Histwo paragraphs on Juan Gelman, whose son was murdered and pregnantdaughter-in-law disappeared during Argentina's "Dirty War," bring thisman's art into clear, tragic focus. But even here, the compulsivelygenerous author is compelled to enshrine the words of other critics,foregrounding Eduardo Galeano and Julio Cortázar, who describes Gelman'sart as "a permanent caress of words on unknown tombs." What a pleasure itis to be inside Hirsch's head! He seems to have read everything andabsorbed most of it, and he wears his considerable scholarship lightly. Many of his fellow poets have suffered for their art, have been imprisoned and killed--butabove all, Hirsch makes us realize that, no matter what the artist'scircumstances, subject, or theme, "the stakes are always high" in this gamethat writer and reader alike must keep playing. --Kerry Fried ... Read more

Customer Reviews (25)

Not Necessarily for a Beginning Reader of Poetry But Still a Good Resource
While this book has a very academic tone, it is also obvious that the author has a genuine passion for poetry.His goal with this book, it seems, was to help others learn about poetry from the poems themselves.Each chapter (or article) presents a group of poems around a certain topic (theme) that the author hopes will help the reader to better grasp the world of poetry.Hirsch is acutely aware of what a partner the reader of poetry is to the poem.

The first few chapters are the most compelling as is Chapter 9 that deals with form.In these sections, Hirsch is in his element as he uses bits of poems and quotes from poets to discuss such things as the basis of form, rhythm and structure.The other chapters in this book, however, often seem to run on into the more esoteric aspects of poetry and are not as easily read--especially when Hirsch selects very long poems.

This book was listed, in most circles, as a book for lay readers to learn about poetry but as a poet--an amateur academic--I found it a bit more advanced then it was described as being to me.That being said the first three chapters and the glossary and reading lists are well worth reading through so I would still suggest this book. I would lean, however, to suggesting it for writers or a lay person who is more of an intermediate reader of poetry than a beginner.

Bought for Poetry writing course
Bought for poetry writing course, was helful but slow read.

Like an old glove, it gets better with age...
I tend to think of this book as I do my seasoned, battered first baseman's mitt, which accompanied me through eight seasons of championship Senior Mens' Hardball in the Northwest.

As I grow older, I become more appreciative of Ed Hirsch's spiritual gift. It is no small feat to mentor well, especially in a field as suspicious as poetry, but Hirsch manages quite well, with no lies and no breaking of hands, with no disillusion or politicking. By sharing his passion and speaking honestly and humbly from his heart, he presents a compelling case for reading poetry, for reading at all for enjoyment, love, and salvation. It's a necessary book, and I wish I had written it myself. It is a superior substitute for extended, engaging conversation. I'm glad we have it, and that someone as capable as Ed Hirsch has made himself and his insights available to us.

Robert McDowell, author of the forthcoming Poetry In Your Spiritual Practice

What goes out from the heart enters the heart
There is a Jewish teaching, that something said from the heart enters the heart. Hirsch's love of poetry is the dominant theme here, an enthusiasm he teaches in every line he writes. He cites Rilke as saying that poetry should be an ' experience' something felt and sensed directly. And poetry is clearly that for Hirsch.
Those of us who have read poetry all our lives, and found in it a special gift and power, a special consolation and source of strength know and understand the kind of ' love' Hirsch is talking about.
Poetry can enhance life and give us strength in it. If this work succeeds in bringing more readers into the circle of loving poetry then it will certainly have done work of value.

But... How to Read a Poem?
Edward Hirsch has written a meticulous analysis of the art of poetry, imbued with an authentic love of the form. From page to page he dissects and interprets; his enthusiasm remains high throughout. Not just the poetry, but also the poets themselves are lavished with heroic praise, their craft transcending the mortal. Their words are golden strands of virtue more appropriately whispered into the ears of gods.

But, but...

For those of us uneducated in the art of poetry there is a much more basic level of understanding that has to be achieved first: Why no punctuation? Why do sentences break in mid-breath? How does one find the meter in a poem? How does one read poetry without the stops and starts from line to line? Perhaps we should have learned this in school, but we didn't, so we bought this book.

This is a good book, really, but it is not what its title suggests. It should rather be entitled "The Love of Poetry", or "Falling in Love With Poetry", or "Furthering Your Love of Poetry", or something else emotive. "How to Read a Poem" sounds mechanical, the basics, just what those uneducated among us get when we do a keyword search on how to read a poem.

Select another book in order to learn how to read a poem, then graduate to this one once you comprehend the basics.
... Read more

Product Description
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 vision that becomes art?
In this groundbreaking book, Edward Hirsch explores the concept of duende, that mysterious, highly potent power of creativity that results in a work of art. With examples ranging from Federico García Lorca's wrestling with darkness as he discovered the fountain of words within himself to Martha Graham's creation of her most emotional dances, from the canvases of Robert Motherwell to William Blake's celestial visions, Hirsch taps into the artistic imagination and explains, in terms illuminating and emotional, how different artists respond to the power and demonic energy of creative impulse.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Bad
Edward Hirsch is 1 of those, at best, mediocre poets that has ensconced himself into a position of some power in the small, incestual world of poetry. The Demon And the Angel is a book that claims to query into the reason for the Muse- or, as its subtitle proclaims, Searching For The Source Of Artistic Inspiration. The problem is that someone as EH is utterly clueless as to such provenance since he's never displayed a hint of its acquaintance in his own work. The bulk of the book probes every manner of artistic cliché available- from Federico Garcia Lorca's duende nonsense to divine inspiration. Gander at some of his chapter's titles & you can basically fill in the blanks: A Mysterious Power, The Hidden Spirit Of Disconsolate Spain, The Majesty Of The Incomprehensible, Ardent Struggle, Endless Vigil, & The Yearning Cry Of A Shade. If this brings to mind solipsistic gustations, & unintentionally hilarious exegesis then you've obviously been keeping up with art's descent into the lowest common denominator the last few decades....EH's definitions of the Lorcan duende & the Rilkean angel are not only problematic, at best, & false, at worst, but utterly banal. I mean, if 1 were to tell you the duende comes from below & the angel drops down from transcendence, I tend to think that even a marginally educated writer would reply, `Duh.' But, this fact is a crux in the Hirschian posit. Or how about this touch of stolidity? He claims that Lorca claimed that whatever had blackness in it was the duende. EH literally takes this to mean that any mention of black, darkness, night, can only mean death. In short, he is utterly negating the possibility of undermining the cliché. The reverse is true for the angel.
Yet, after 230 pages, we end up back where we started from- with unsupported gustations asking what is the angel & duende. The former is `burning on rooftops', `carved in stone', & `troubles your dreams', while the latter is `hiding under your boot soles', `the wing of a wounded hawk', & a `joy that burns'. That EH is a grand tautologist is beyond question- equally so that he is utterly rent of any ideas re: creativity or its provenance. If inspiration is all around would it not have been easier to simply declaim, `inspiration is all around', rather than waste whatever paper it took to make this ridiculously bad book? Instead, we get wan filigrees & reworked grandiloquent paraphrase, not to mention EH's wonder at such marvelous & never before attempted things like a poet talking of love & death in the same poem!
Worse, EH pretends that he has some intimate knowledge of what makes great art. I always find it amazing when bad artists claim great artists as their inspiration, yet their work is nowhere near the quality & they've taken none of the greatness to heart. EH's spent some time editing the Washington Post's poetry column Poet's Choice, which only highlighted his ignorance in the choice of bad poems he chose to feature. Why would a publisher choose to give this clod anymore credence? EH knows nothing of art nor creativity. Wait, I said that before, I'm sure. Let me get my grandiloquent tautologizer ray gun & rewrite. ZAP! Damn, I guess 1 who has met the Muse is immune to such. Trust me, & stay away from this utter piece of garbage. This hack needs scorn, not royalty checks!

Interesting, if pretentious, look at Lorca's 'Duende'
This book allegedly sets out to discover where inspiration for art comes from. In order to do this, the author focuses heavily on the work of Federico Garcia Lorca and his theories of Duende - a dark primal emotional state from which Lorca drew much inspiration. The back cover of the book gives a vast listing of other artists, authors and poets whose names are thrown out teasingly. Unfortunately, people like Hemingway, Plath, Blake and Rimbaud are only briefly touched upon in the book, while heavy emphasis is placed on Lorca's work.

As much as I find the concepts of Duende fascinating, I would rather just read Lorca's books. 'Demon and the Angel' suffers from misrepresentation, and readers should be warned. This is not a search for artistic inspiration. A description that is far closer to the truth would be 'Investigating Lorca's Theories and their Relationships to Other Artists'.

Still, it does prove a fascinating read, and the limited space all the other artists are given is still a decent sampling of their art. Pretentious at times, but still a fairly motivational book for writers and artists. Just be warned who the real star of the book is.

I'm not sure
I started reading it, and found myself to be lost.I felt like there was a book I should have read before this one.It seems like a continuation of something else.But, it is probably just not for me.

Entering the nether world of inspiration
Flashes of inspiration, of originality, of that conjoining of synapses that transmit creativity to the mind/eye/hand/soul of the receiver and bring forth significant art have been assigned to a Muse, a connection with some other place, always indefineable until this eloquent little book by the intoxicatingly intelligent Edward Hirsch. As erudite as this well researched book is, it is more a companion to the learning eye and mind, much like his other forays into how to read poetry, etc. Using the centuries-old concept of the "daimon" or demon as best illustrated thorugh Lorca's "duende", Hirsch spends the first half of his book drawing us into a familiarity and asks us to be vulnerable to the concept of a mysterious spirit that enters from the bowels of the earth the body of the writer, poet, musician, composer, dancer,and induces creativity. His examples and quotations from a wide range of artists are convincing. And just when we feel sure that we understand the creative source, Hirsch takes us a step further and discusses the Rilke belief that inspiration comes down from the heavens as an angel to soar through the mind of the receptive artist and provides that out of body, inexplicable touch that we call creativity. With both sources - one emerging for the bowels of the earth as a dark demon and the other descending through the firmament to transiently rest inside the soul - Hirsch addresses just what is "creativity" and how we can better find it and embrace it. This small book speaks volumes to artists and readers alike. This is not a "self help" book, but rather a source of inspiration as powerful as any canvas or poem or symphony. Read and improve your connection with art.

Elucidating the Elusive
Employing as touchstones Garcia Lorca's consideration of duende and Rilke's concept of the angel, Edward Hirsch constructs a convincingly argued, evocative "search for the source of artistic inspiration."In lucid, forceful prose Hirsch draws illustration for his argument not only from poetry (art in words)but from all the arts.His thought-provoking investigation deepens our understanding not only of the source of artistic inspiration but also of the interrelation of the arts and their common inspirational wellsprings.His illustations and exemplifications range widely among virtually all modern artistic innovators.By coming at the question of inspiration through all the arts his discussion deepens and enriches the reader's understanding, leaving him or her enlightened and stimulated. ... Read more

Product Description
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 oriented writer in the Hebrew Bible, and concludes with a memoir of the author's grandfather, whose poems (which have not survived) he has tried to envision. There is an investigation of Dante's Inferno and of a biography of Emerson. There are pieces on the Polish poets Zbigniew Herbert, Alexsander Wat, and Wislawa Szymborska, and on the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai; on Derek Walcott; and on the sullen majesty of Philip Larkin. There are also pieces that follow Federico Garcia Lorca and Joseph Cornell (via Charles Simic) on forays into New York City. An award-winning essay, "The Imaginary Irish Peasant," tracks a company of Irish writers into the countryside, both a real and an imagined place, a symbol-laden territory. Indeed, all these pieces testify to a poet's sublime experience of reading.
Edward Hirsch is author of On Love, Earthly Measures, The Night Parade, Wild Gratitude, and For the Sleepwalkers. His prizes include an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lyndhurst Prize, the William Riley Parker Prize from the Modern Language Association, the National Book Critics Award, and the Rome Prize. He is poetry editor for Doubletake magazine and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Houston.
... Read more

Product Description
Judged the author's best work yet by his contemporaries, a collection of poems highlights a human being's struggle with the urgency of everyday emotions. Reprint.Amazon.com Review
The absence of God and the abundant presence of human desire permeateEdward Hirsch's fourth collection of poetry and form a passionately importantinquiry into the nature of worship and manifestations of the divine. Hisexperience of place is both sensual and archaeological--as he soaks up thecolors of the sky and draws upon the earth for inspiration, he also derivesstrength from "(feeling) the centuries welling up beneath him." Ashe considers the relationship between instances of spiritual revelation andthe everyday realities of irony and brutality, Hirsch concludes that it isthe earth that needs our full attention and prayers, "because/ it isonly earth--limited, sensuous/ earth that is so fleeting, so real." ... Read more

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Time to Read Hirsch Again
Few contemporary poets have been able to eloquently address the wasting of the earth or the commitment to universals as well as Edward Hirsch.His subject matter ranges vastly from the vantage of the American Midwest to the Arcadian visions of the European landscape.His poems are easily read but are slow to absorb and keep in the brain.But with the current global negligence of respect for the planet, reading Edward Hirsch brings back the sanctity of being.

Yes, in this collection of his works he addresses the nightmare of abandonment and decay, continuing themes that have accompanied his poems since he first began writing. But somehow his poems in reference to Henry James, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the school of Luminist artists, the character of Orpheus, etc bring us into his realm of knowledge, a journey that only serves to nudge us back to literature and art and things that live and sustain.
Edward Hirsch is a brilliant poet, one whose name belongs in the highest echelon of American poets.For those unfamiliar with his work this small but exceedingly powerful volume of thirty-seven poems is as fine an introduction as any. Recommended.Grady Harp, February 06 ... Read more

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Three generations of writers celebrate a master whose life and work continue to reverberate in contemporary letters.

William Maxwell, who died in July 2000, was revered as one of the twentieth century's great American writers and a longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker. Now writers who knew Maxwell and were inspired by him—both the man and his work—offer intimate essays, most specifically written for this volume, that "bring him back to life, right there in front of us."

Alec Wilkinson writes of Maxwell as mentor; Edward Hirsch remembers him in old age; Charles Baxter illuminates the magnificent novel So Long, See You Tomorrow; Ben Cheever recalls Maxwell and his own father; Donna Tartt vividly describes Maxwell's kindness to herself as a first novelist; and Michael Collier admires him as a supreme literary correspondent. Other appreciations include insightful pieces by Alice Munro, Anthony Hecht, a poem by John Updike, and a brief tribute from Paula Fox. Ending this splendid collection is Maxwell himself, in the unpublished speech "The Writer as Illusionist." ... Read more

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For All Of Us Who Love William Maxwell
Fourteen writers who knew and loved the incredible William Maxwell have written beautifully about him in this fine collection of "memories and appreciations." In addition to the editors, Charles Baxter, Michael Collier and Edward Hirsch, other writers included are John Updike, Donna Tartt, Alice Munro, Shirley Hazzard, Anthony Hecht, Richard Bausch, Paula Fox, Alec Wilkinson, Benjamin Cheever, Ellen Bryant Voigt, and Annabel Davis-Goff. There is also a previously unpublished speech of Mr. Maxwell's. It is almost as if these writers read each other's notes since they express practically the same sentiments with only minor differences as they each see him through the prisms of their own experiences. They describe him as loving, generous, kind, gentle, modest, dignified, thoughtful, tremendously interested in the lives of other people, never glib. The superlatives go on and on. Born in Lincoln, Illinois, in 1908, Mr. Maxwell apparently had an idyllic childhood until he lost his mother to influenza during the horrible epidemic of 1918. That single event, which he wrote about again and again in both his fiction and other writings, shaped the rest of his life. According to Mr. Wilkinson, when Mr. Maxwell's mother died, he "gave up any belief in a god who protected human happiness. No sensible person can fail to be astonished by creation, he thought, but the idea of an old man watching over individual lives, a being who judged, kept track, and intervened, who favored one person over another, a figure from a story-- such a version had no meaning for him." Ms. Davis-Goff says he believed in love, not in God, and that he wrote about the redeeming nature of love. Edward Hirsch in one of the most moving essays in the collection-- that made my eyes burn-- reminds us that Mr. Maxwell's religion was literature. He was happily married to his wife Emily for many years and died at the age of 92 only 8 days after her death. As an editor for THE NEW YORKER for forty years, Mr. Maxwell published many fine writers including Eudora Welty, John Cheever, John Hersey, John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov et al.

These for the most part are beautiful essays-- John Updike's contribution is a poem-- written about a most beautiful man. Many of them should cause those of us who already adore William Maxwell to reread him or introduce him to a new generation of lovers of literature. One is reminded again of the difference between fine literature and popular fiction and why Updike and Tom Wolfe should never be discussed in the same paragraph.

There are many wondrous sayings of Mr. Maxwell included here: that all he asked of life is the privilege of being able to read, that the the only part he would miss about dying was that he couldn't read Tolstoy, that either you retire from life or you advance to meet it, that when he first read Yeats' early poetry he "felt as if fairy dust had been sprinkled on him." And you have to love someone who says that "every writer has a lifetime ration of three exclamation points." In addition to the Maxwell quotations, many of the writers discuss at considerable length his works, particularly his novels. The most successful of the essayists, rather than analyze them, let Mr. Maxwell's works speak for themselves. Shirley Hazzard describes the last year of Mr. Maxwell's life, with his wife slowly dying of cancer, when he reread Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE. "He said, 'It is so comforting.' We rejoiced together over certain scenes, not 'discussing' or dissecting them but paying, simply, the tribute of our delight." That's the best way to enjoy this extraordinary book. Just pay tribute with your delight. ... Read more

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In this unique and lavishly illustrated gift book, famous writers, including John Updike, Wallace Stevens, Joyce Carol Oates, and Philip Levine, contribute poems and prose--most never before published--on artworks found in one of the country's preeminent museums. 70 illustrations, 63 in color. ... Read more

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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 poetic texts, as when Dante’s Inferno enters his bedroom:

When you read Canto Five aloud last night
in your naked, singsong, fractured Italian,
my sweet compulsion, my carnal appetite,
I suspected we shall never be forgiven
for devouring each other body and soul ...

From the lighting of a Yahrzeit candle to the drawings by the children of Terezin, Hirsch longs for transcendence in art and in the troubled history of his faith. In “The Hades Sonnets,” the ravishing series that crowns the collection, the poet awakens full of grief in his wife’s arms, but here as throughout, there is a luminous forgiveness in his examination of our sorrows. Taken together, these poems offer a profound engagement with our need to capture what is passing (and past) in the incandescence of language.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Most of it is quite good
These poems run the gamut and are extremely allusive. They are book-ended by classically-driven pieces [i.e., the Odyssey] as well as Renaissance works [Dante]. Hirsch brings his own personal experiences to these renowned works and coopts their voices. The middle sections do not work as well, as theyare "personal," or adopt the guise of so being; and they somehow do not hang together cleanly. There are some good pieces, however, like the concentration camp art of children, but the very confessional nature of them is not as strong as the less personal beginning and ending poems. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
In Wild Gratitude, Edward Hirsch unfurls a kaleidoscope of inventivepoems that honor other artists and writers, confront urban life and embraceEast European fugitives, as well as eulogizing his grandparents andrecollecting his youth. At their very best the poems in this collection,which won a National Book Critics Circle Award, somehow merge these subjects,as is the case in "Three Journeys," which draws parallels between abag lady's troubles and those of an artist. In all, the book offers readers asweeping accumulation of work by a talented poet deserving of greaterattention. ... Read more

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Extraordinary, direct poetry
I saw Edward Hirsch read from his work earlier this week and the reading confirmed what I have thought for some time--he is one of the best poets now working. Direct, passionate, delightful and in love with life despite its difficulties and disappointments, this reissue (along with his new book, Lay Back the Darkness and his older collection, For The Sleepwalkers) is a book no lover of serious, skilled poetry should be without.

Stunning American poetry.
I've had this volume for many years now.Hirsch's poem "Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad" is perhaps one of the best American language poems ever written.I consider almost all of Hirsch'swork to be outstanding, but I hope never to be without a copy of thisvolume. ... Read more

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Beautiful, thoughtful poems, a pleasure to read
I am just so impressed by the beauty and lyricism of Dan Albergotti's work. The whole book is so thoughtful, each poem lending to and taking from every other poem. Very interconnected, very well thought out, very tightly knit. Albergotti's meditations on God and death and joy really touched me. The final poem, which is also the title poem, was probably my favorite--although I really don't think you should read that one first, I think that would spoil the whole thing. You just have to go read the whole book. Overall, really lovely and a pleasure to read. ... Read more

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The complete English translation of Nazim Hikmet's epic masterwork.Written during the Second World War while Hikmetwas serving a thirteen-year sentence as apolitical prisoner, his verse-novel usescinematic techniques to tell the story of theemergence of secular, modern Turkey by focusingon the always-entertaining stories of sundrycharacters from all walks of life. As hisvignettes flash before our eyes at movie-likespeed, it becomes clear he is also telling theturbulent story of the twentieth century itselfand the ongoing struggle between tradition,which trusts in God, and modernity, whichentrusts the world to human hands. ... Read more

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Human Landscapes of a Nation
Nazim Hikmet's great Epic Poetry is written in simple lines that carry more than they seem. So much about a culture and its human side. Nazim Hikmet, regardless of his politic side, is a humanist that always believed in human beings and wished for the best for those who suffer. Human Landscapes is a masterpiece of his humanist side.

Great Book, and a good edition
Nazim Hikmet and his poetry and prose are famous for various reasons, and I think with this specific edition the value of the poetry is very well communicated even to those who read Nazim for the first time. The translation, the glossary and the introductions are what make this edition great. As to what makes this book great... it is a very telling story of the history of the time in Turkey. The characters come alive and pass us by as we turn the pages and the reader becomes a part of the epic. While reading the story I felt like I was in Turkey and was turning my head to see where the noises were coming from only to be included in the daily lives of so many very well developed characters.... ... Read more

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Picasso was first attracted to the work of sixteenth-century Spanish poet Luis de Gongora y Argote during the 1920s, when the poet, called "the father of modern poetry" by Federico Garcia Lorca, was resurrected by the Surrealists. Gongora is comprised of twenty sonnets by the poet, which Pablo Picasso wrote out in hand and further embellished with flourishes, figures and sketches. The artist also rendered twenty portraits to accompany these poems. The result is a blending of word and image, full of imaginary variety and exceptional artistic virtuosity. This bilingual edition of Gongora, featuring a preface by award-winning poet Edward Hirsch and an introduction by former New York Times chief art critic John Russell, presents this intimate union of art and poetry.

Gongora's sophisticated and complex poetic style inspired a school of literature, called "culteranismo," influenced by his expressive power, unrestrained by the strict conventions of formal Spanish. Known for his sharp wit and self-satire, he was acutely aware of the irony in his passion for women and gambling, and his position as a deacon of the Catholic Church. In Gongora, Picasso's handwritten Spanish text, with its embellishing remarques closely following the words, established the artist's personal attachment to the poetry. The rich presentation of images—described as a "veritable feminine kaleidoscope"—invites the natural comparison with the great Spanish portraitists Velasquez and El Greco, who were Gongora's contemporaries.

This edition of Gongora will appeal to a broad audience and expose a new generation of readers to the lyrical brilliance of this groundbreaking Spanish poet and to the visual interpretation of his famous admirer. Picasso's etchings, executed in drypoint and aquatint, demonstrate an extraordinary ability to master the elements of light and shade to create rich, sensuous and mysterious effects. Perhaps Picasso's finest graphic accomplishment, Gongora is a memorable visual and literary experience. 40 duotone illustrations. ... Read more

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Gongora Book
This is an excellent reference book for those who are familiar with the Picasso artworks and want to find an English translation of each sonnet that Gongora wrote.I had researched via the internet for the translations of these 20 poems, but came up empty, until I received this exquisite book.A beautiful formatted book with large text and the Picasso artworks are the same size as the original aquatint etchings.A Must for all Picasso collectors and art/literature appreciators.It has helped me tremendous in my art field.

Gongora - Poetry Comes to Life
It is a pleasure to review a book that combines the beauty of the artisticword with the elegance of the artist's hand. In this beautiful work, thereader immerses himself in the translations of the sonnets of Luis deGongora y Argote and portraits by Pablo Picasso.A copy of each sonnet,rewritten by Picasso is dramatically seen withportraits andembellishments. The book is reproduced to scale and a must for lovers ofthe arts. ... Read more

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Selected by Peter Davison with an introduction by Edward Hirsch. Sissman was a true phenomenon in American poetry. He published his first book, a collection of antic, autobiographical episodes in blank verse, in 1968. Eight years and three books later, he died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of forty-eight. Of Sissman's remarkable final poems John Updike wrote, "What other poet had ever given such wry and unblinking witness to his own dying? His poetry gave back to life more generously than he had received, and carried his beautiful wit into darkness undimmed." Now Sissman's longtime editor, Peter Davison, has selected from his lifework the essential poems--the essence of an American original. (A Mariner Original) ... Read more

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Ed Sissman remembered
I met Ed Sissman back in 1946 in Cambridge, Massachusetts while a student at Wheaton College. He was a gentle giant.He would write me poems; I suspect I was his first girlfriend.I lost touch before I married in early 1949. When he began publishing poetry in the New Yorker magazine I wrote him a fan letter, and we had lunch in Boston where he showed me page proofs of a new poem. That was in 1966. Thereafter,it was easy to follow his life through his monthly Atlantic Monthly articles and subsequently follow the course of his fatal illness. I love his poetry. He wrote about his daily trials and happinesses clearly and understandably, unlike so much modern poetry, and with wry humor. The world has lost its innocent bystander who would have enlivened our contemporary world with wit and compassion.

Where has this poet been all my life?
I'd never heard of the late L.E. Sissman till I went to a reading of poems from this book at Harvard. Peter Davison and John Updike reminisced about him and read his wonderful story-poems with zest and humor and realtenderness. Was there ever a poet who wrote about his youth with more manicjoy, or about his own dying (from Hodgkin's disease) with more unblinkingfrankness? I doubt it, and I doubt that there is another poet of hisgeneration (the sixties) who wrote with such immediate accessability--he'sa poet every American dog or cat can understand and enjoy. What a find!Thank you Mr. Davison for bringing him back into print. ... Read more

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This sensitive critical study is a fine introduction to Albee's work. Hirsch is the author of A Method to their Madness: The History of the Actor's Studio. ... Read more

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Who's Afraid of Edward Albee?
Who's Afraid of Edward Albee?
by Foster Hirsch ... Read more