Synopses & Reviews
Grounded in a series of mediations upon the life of the feeling heart in the world, Jane Hirshfield's long-awaited third collection of poetry explores the ways that radiance dwells most truly in the ordinary, the difficult, and the plain.
Synopsis
"An exquisite accomplishment. These serene and painterly meditations quietly blossom into luminous and sensual lyric reckonings." -- David St. John
"A radiant and passionate collection." -- New York Times Book Review
Grounded in a series of mediations upon the life of the feeling heart in the world, Jane Hirshfield's long-awaited third collection of poetry explores the ways that radiance dwells most truly in the ordinary, the difficult, and the plain.
About the Author
The author of five previous poetry collections and a book of essays, Jane Hirshfield has been a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and Englands T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, and she is the winner of the Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The Nation, the Los Angeles Times, and multiple volumes of The Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies.
Table of Contents
What the heart wants -- Red poppies -- Each step -- The shadow -- The house in winter -- Cycladic figure: the harp player (ca. 3000 B.C.E.) -- History as the painter bonnard -- The wedding -- A plenitude -- Narcissus: Tel Aviv, Baghdad, San Francisco; February 1991 -- For the autumn dead: election day, 1984 -- "Perceptibility is a kind of attentiveness" -- Storm: Yaddo, 1989 -- In the year eight hundred -- The ritual -- A recurring possibility -- The world -- Floor -- The hawk cry -- The sting -- Autumn -- What falls -- The door -- 1973 -- Happiness -- This love --