Poetry, Passion, And Zen with Jane Hirshfield

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“Poetry is a natural way to express what it means to be human,” says Jane Hirshfield. “Its depth and color are found in every culture and every age—in the writings not only of famous men but of equally gifted women who have been largely ignored.” Hirshfield herself assembled a historical collection of women’s poetry that speaks to the beauty and wisdom of women’s spiritual experience. She reveals recurring themes in this poetry, such as the ideas that the Divine is experienced through everyday actions and events, and that emotions belong in the enlightened life rather than detract from it. Hirshfield offers gentle wisdom about writing and appreciating poetry: “The poem is the speech of the inner heart, the inner mind,” she says. “If you can simply hear what it’s saying as if it were being whispered to you in the dark, you will understand good poems.” (hosted by Michael Toms)

Bio

Jane Hirshfield is the author of nine books of poetry and two collections of essays. She has edited and co-translated four books presenting the work of world poets from the past. Her books have received the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and the Donald Hal-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry. Her poems appear in a wide range of prestigious outlets. A resident of Northern California, she is a chancellor emerita of the Academy of American Poets. She presents her work at literary and interdisciplinary events worldwide.

Her poetry books include:

• The October Palace: Poems (HarperCollins 1994)
• The Lives of the Heart: Poems (HarperCollins 1997)
• Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (HarperCollins 1994)
• Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (Perennial 1998)
• After: Poems (HarperCollins 2006)
• Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems (HarperCollins 2001)
• The classic translation of the ancient Japanese court women, The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onono Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (Vintage 1990)
• Come, Thief: Poems (Knopf 2011)
• Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World (Alfred A. Knopf 2015)
• The Beauty: Poems (Alfred A. Knopf 2015)
• Ledger (Alfred A. Knopf 2020)

To learn more about the work of Jane Hirshfield go to www.facebook.com/janehirshfield.

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• Overcoming the “fear of poetry”
• Writing, hearing and understanding poetry
• Women’s poetry in the ancient Japanese imperial court
• What mystics of all traditions say about the Divine and the everyday
• How Zen practice relates to poetry
• Her extensive search for sacred writings by women
• Undiscovered women writers who exist “wherever you have men writers”
• The Beguine women’s spiritual communities of the 12^th-14^th centuries
• The modern rediscovery of Sophia, ancient goddess of wisdom
• Getting to wisdom by losing innocence and breaking the rules
• The “bodhisattva of emotions” who wants to liberate dark feelings

Host: Michael Toms       Interview Date: 9/13/1994   Program Number: 2486

Music Included

From Album: Gula Gula
Artist: Mari Boine Persen
1990 Real World #91631-2

From Album: Hunter
Artist: Jennifer Warnes
Private Music #01005-82089-2

From Album: What the Mother Pot Sings
Artist: Susan Berman
Fine Tuning Music #FT 101