Poetry: The Unfolding Of What Is Hidden with Jane Hirshfield

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Jane Hirshfield points out that many people turn to poetry in times of great life transitions. She says, “You know when people fall in love, or when they lose love, or lose someone they loved, that is when they want a poem. When they get married, they want a poem. These great transitions are larger than the normal, ordinary consciousness. And what poems do is give us a vocabulary for understanding things, which isn’t available through any other use of language.” Her poetry alludes to far ranging subjects such as time, nature, and even science. Here she reads some of her poems and talks of the inspiration from which they come and why they speak to us and move us beyond our rational minds and our busy intellect through metaphors and images. She shares with us why poetry, and other art forms like music, speak so deeply to the heart and soul. (hosted by Justine Willis 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

• What is the history of the word observation
• Why do many people turn to poetry when great transitions occur in their lives
• How poems help us to fully inhabit what is incomprehensible through logic
• How writing poetry should be an act of discovery, rather than a transcription of what we already know
• How does poetry stop time
• How lichen is integral to the health of old growth redwood forests
• How can we cultivate the attention of a writer
• What is the seven word description of Buddhism

Host: Justine Willis Toms     Interview Date: 9/7/2011    Program Number: 3410

Music Playlist

From Album: Hidden Sky
Artist: Jami Sieber
2004 Out Front Music #OFM-1-1

Opening Essay: Track 01 Maenam
Music Break 1: Track 05 Red Moon
Music Break 2: Track 09 Hidden Sky
Music Break 3: Track 11 Arms of the Mother