Edward HirschCritiques

This collection of 130 newspaper columns that Hirsch wrote for the Washington Post, each briefly discussing the work of a poet or poets he admires, is like a treasure trove of bread crumbs which can lead the reader onto paths of interest throughout the poetic corpus. Hirsch's love of poetry is wide ranging and enthusiastic and it's hard to imagine anyone but the expert not finding introductions here to new and interesting poets, and more avenues down which to go exploring.

This is a long collection, so be prepared! If you are prepared to take in a few poems at a time, it's a great read!

This collection is serious and packed full of content, as well as commentary. It's a really interesting take and I enjoyed it. Normally I enjoy reading a few poems at a time, but I had to binge this one due to time constraints. It's a massive one that I don't recommend reading in one sitting, but it's still a great read!

Three out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

Reading a poem and falling in love with poetry can be a very personal and subjective experience. Here are a few tips that may help you get started:

Start by finding a poem that speaks to you on a personal level. Look for poems that touch on themes or experiences that resonate with you, or that evoke strong emotions.

Take your time as you read the poem. Don't worry about understanding every word or phrase right away – allow yourself to savor the language and rhythm of the poem.

Pay attention to the structure and form of the poem. How is it organized? Does it have a regular rhyme scheme or meter? How do these elements contribute to the overall meaning or effect of the poem?

Consider the imagery and figurative language used in the poem. What do the words and phrases conjure up in your mind? How do they contribute to the mood or theme of the poem?

Think about the speaker of the poem. Who is telling the story or expressing the thoughts and feelings in the poem? How does the speaker's perspective shape the way you interpret the poem?

Reflect on your own reactions and feelings as you read the poem. How does the poem make you feel? What memories or associations does it bring to mind?

By engaging with a poem in this way, you may find that you begin to appreciate and enjoy the art and beauty of poetry.

One of my favorite anthologies with poems from more than one hundred poets. Curated by Edward Hirsch they come alive again or for the first time, but always presented with commentary that adds to your own critical assessment. I love returning to old favorites with a new eye & ear, or finding new poems and poets whose verse resonates and inspires this reader.

The Heart of American Poetry by Edward Hirsch is both an analysis of various poems that have spoken to Hirsch as well as a glimpse at how many different ways there are to read and understand poetry.

On the surface, this is an inclusive collection of forty poems, each accompanied by a brief essay on Hirsch's reading. Don't be mislead by any reviewer who only names those part of the traditional canon as being in this book. In the introduction and in his selection, Hirsch is far more inclusive. Maybe some readers only want to mention those usually included in such anthologies, but that says more about them than about this book.

I think what makes this volume so much more important, especially for those who like poetry but often feel they don't "read it right," is that these readings show many different ways into poetry. Yes, Hirsch is a poet himself and is very knowledgeable, but his approaches are very personal in nature. The ways he might approach a poem are ways we might also do so. Just because we have less knowledge in some areas doesn't mean the poem will speak to us any less. When we begin to trust our reading of poetry we can then look deeper, whether into the mechanics of poetry or the historical context of certain poems and poets. Our readings will be different from Hirsch's, but so what. We take from each poem what we can, and learning both method and specific information through this book will only enrich our future reading of poetry.

I am going to suggest another book that would make a great companion to this one. My intention is not to have it look like an either/or but as complementary volumes. The other book is The Difference is Spreading edited by Al Filreis and Anna Strong Safford. The similarity is that each book consists of a poet commenting on a specific poem. The contrast, and why I think they go so well together, is that while The Heart of American Poetry has one poet commenting on forty poems The Difference is Spreading has fifty different contemporary poets each commenting on a poem of their choosing. Between these books a reader can see many ways, both technical and personal, into a poem. I will also add that the Filreis/Safford book is based loosely on their wonderful ModPo MOOC.

Highly recommended for both those who read poetry often as well as those who like poetry but might not read it very often. Don't let Hirsch's knowledge of poetry intimidate you, appreciate what he offers as commentary and also look at how he approaches each poem and adapt that for your own level of knowledge.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

V good.

The 10th collection from Hirsh, published 40 years after his first, has a very somber tone. It almost feels like a goodbye - half of the poems are about his friends dying (including Philip Levine, William Meredith and Mark Strand - his peers and friends in his craft), the other half are a walk down memory line to past times and past people and sometimes even past places.

The somber tone never really changes but some of the memory poems have a lighter tone - there is some lifting of the clouds. But the sun never really shows up - the overarching images are the ones of cemeteries and funerals, of loss and sorrow.

To all that is added the very personal loss of Hirsh - he started losing his eyesight. A set of poems towards the end of the book deals with that and they are as heart-breaking as anything else in this collection.

For a slim collection, it was a hard work reading it. The poems were sometimes too forceful and the darkness kept coming. Even the lighter ones had enough darkness in them to add to the overall gloominess. The collection makes you think of death and loss - and that is not always a comfortable feeling.

I've read a few of those poems before in various magazines and journals. They are dark but they almost seem to contain a ray of hope on their own. Assembled into a collection, read in the order selected by the author (and the editors), feeding each other, that hope is lost and it is all about the darkness in all its forms. And even the ones that do not work on their own for me add to the overall feeling.

And it is the very last poem that hits the hardest. On its face it is one of the lighter ones. But when a collection full of elegies ends with one called "Don't write elegies", it makes you pause. It is almost a denial of the whole collection. And at the same time it is also a closing chapter - all the elegies are now written, it is someone else's turn to write and mourn, it is time to move on.½

I haven't read poetry with any regularity for more than 20 years, when I read a lot of it. I picked up a few slim contemporary volumes from my branch library's paltry collection this week, focusing on names I knew and poets I had neglected. Hirsch's book was the first of these I read (other than dipping into a bit of Yeats -- not a contemporary, so he doesn't really count). I expected to read a few pages, find it tiresome, and put it aside confirmed in my usual feeling about poetry in recent years that it's not really worth the time (my general attitude toward most of the poetry I have peeked at over the last 20 years).

But this book was enthralling. Rhythmic and lyrical and flirting with form (e.g. he writes a few slant terza rima sonnets, which really are a lovely form), but disposing of it readily as well. He's writing here chiefly about memory -- the loss of it via his father's Alzheimer's, the recording of it in art (especially art pertaining to or interpreted through the lens of the Holocaust), and by recalling and riffing on well known stories from the likes of Homer and Dante.

I didn't love every poem, but more of them were hits than misses, which was hardly what I expected, makes me look forward to dipping into the other books I picked up, and makes me think about whether I ought to reconsider what a curmudgeon I've been about poetry for the last couple of decades.

Name: 100 Poems to Break Your Heart
Author: Edward Hirsch
Genre: Poetry, Love, Loss, Death, Longing
Rating: 4/5
Review:
This book is an anthology of heart touching poems of pain and loss by some of the most popular poets like Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Thomas Hardy, John Berrymen, Anne Sexton and many more. The author has done a critical analysis of each poetry and gives us an insight of the poet's mindset while writing the poem. This is a wonderful collection of poetry, which I loved to read. Each poetry is an amazing peice of work which leave us lost in thoughts.

Edward Hirsch wrote an excellent book about reading poetry. Beginning my foray into poetry this book was helpful as a guide and also a source of entertainment (Hirsch gets a bit hyperbolic at times). The guy clearly loves poetry and shares through his emotional and intellectual responses to poems the proper way to approach verse. I read in another review that the first seven chapters are the strongest, most coherent. The first seven chapters follow the thesis of the book and the remaining examine facets of poetry (like post-war Polish poetry) that interest Hirsch as an individual. I found the latter chapters engaging and stimulating but certainly not nearly as instructive as the first seven.

Best American Poetry 2016 edited by David Lehman and Edward Hirsch is the 29th annual edition of American poetry. In 1994, Lehman succeeded Donald Hall as the general editor of the University of Michigan Press’s Poets on Poetry series, a position he held for twelve years. In 1997, he teamed with Star Black in creating and directing the famed KGB Bar Monday night poetry series in New York City’s East Village. He has taught in the graduate writing program of the New School in New York City since the program’s inception in 1996 and has served as poetry coordinator since 2003. He has edited The Best American Poetry Series since 1988. Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, which brings together thirty-five years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker calls “a masterpiece of sorrow.” He has also published five prose books about poetry.

There are two events I look forward to every year -- The Iowa Poetry Prize winners and Lehman's Best American Poetry. As an anthology, it is wide-ranging in subject and style making it a book of discovery and also a book that gives the reader boundaries for his or her taste. This is not a collection where the reader will enjoy every poem, but it is a collection that has something for everyone. In Lehman's introduction, he tells of how poetry is a reflection of the times and the times are not good. There is terrorism, environmental destruction, and a constant stream of doom being reported. There is also a diversity in this collection that reflects a change in America. There are poems from Asian and Indian perspectives adding to the traditional melting pot.

Two poems, in particular, jumped up and rattled my brain. “Humanity 101” by Lynn Emanuel deep in satire and real world reflections of Humanity and Remedial Humanity as college courses. Is that how far we have come as people, needing to learn what it is to be humans? Of course, even in the instruction it is filled with the same warped sense of perceived reality that people believed putting a magnet on their car was supporting the troops, but when physically and mentally broken troops returned home needing help they were quickly forgotten. That poem struck deep. In the same sense "The Lady Responds" by Linda Gergerson on the surface seems to show how lightly we treat animals, especially in emotional and physical cruelty. A little closer look at the dedication "after Sir Thomas Wyatt" and the opening line "Whoso list to hunt..." It is a response to Thomas Wyatt's poem about Anne Boleyn where the deer (Boleyn) he wants cannot be had because it's on Caesar's land (king's wife) so he can no longer hunt. Gergerson's reply is concerning the dogs that hunt, cannot behave, and those that are live bait for bears. Extremely well done on two levels.

Also in this year's edition is a high percentage of prose poetry and free verse, much more than I remember in previous editions. Most are very good but still many may question if it is really poetry or a vivid short story. There is no doubt that prose can be poetic but is it poetry? That is for the reader to decide. There are plenty of more conventional poems in the collection for the traditionalists. Best American Poetry 2016 is a good indicator of the direction of American poetry. It reflects the changes in society both good and bad and how America is seen from the inside. Although Lehman warns of the apocalyptic feelings of the times there is hope and lightness still to be found in American poetry.

Straight and direct but without much flair or color

I feel this book's title does not truly describe what it offers. It is a book of essays that takes as it's topic the subtle enchantment poetry produces; it is a book length paean to the art of poetry. It is not particularly effective as an introductory volume on poetry for the ignorant layman, as Hirsch's analysis is informed by a lifetime spent spent reading and writing poetry, and as a result can seem unapproachable at times. However, Hirsh's enthusiasm and love for poetry is infectious, and I came away from the book with a greater appreciation and respect for the art form.

This book left me with a lot to learn about the form and history of poetry, which I had expected to learn more about during the course of this book, it successfully delves into the essence and the romance of poetry. This book left me with a desire to learn more, and to read more poetry. Although this book may not have been what I expected, it was highly successful in the end.

Edward Hirsch's GABRIEL: A POEM is as much about the mystery of his son's life as it is about his mysterious death at 22 years old. Energetic and often out of control, Gabriel's life was unleashed by various personality disorders. He experimented with everything and shied away from few things but slowing down--almost like the doomed who know they have a short time to finish the race--a shooting star through the lives of those who loved him. All this restless energy, this ever quivering vibration of life, coming to a sudden stop as an arrow hitting it's mark compounded the already immense power of death. Left in this wake, Hirsch relies on his strength, poetry, to deal with his grief. The result is a marvel. The author writes to keep his head above water--grief must run its course but to fall below its surface is to risk losing one's way. Not a linear dissection of reality, instead it is a rapid and roiling river of pain moving ever forward but at the same time falling back upon itself to run the same course again. The narration starts at the end, jumps to the beginning and then to various passages in between the way memory does. This leaves you with not just the facts but also the impression of the facts, reality and rumination blended into one. The effect is wave upon wave of Hirsch's anguish and sorrow but as you work through the poem, you realize that it is also a celebration of the life lost. He loves and appreciates all aspects of his son as if for the first time. And not for the last time, for as long as his memories live, so will his son. By the end of reading this book, which I consumed with one massive swallow, I was left not only with Hirsch's sadness, but was again mourning the loss of those I've loved. And it was not a bad thing. I was left a better man. Better able to love and remember and appreciate while I still can.

Heard about this from the Literary Disco podcast, where I am still 3 years behind, and picked it up online. It's a heartbreaking grief memoir in three line stanzas. It is also a commentary on writing about grief and how a life can be appropriated by the writing and what purpose writing about grief serves. Hirsch both memorializes his son and articulates his sadness with crystal clarity. Not sentimental. Not mawkish. This book is both honest and devastating.

"Anything but Standard," an evocative poem by Edward Hirsch about a man and his dog and their walks, was quietly thrilling to me.
Because THE LIVING FIRE contained it, I ordered this book and yet found no other poem that resounded so well.

The poetry feels designed for men, with the unapologetic use of the jarring c-word, many poems, like "Abortion" and "Milk,"
and being charmed into his death trips.

That said, I did love"...and swam toward a red star rising in the east - regal, purple-robed."

Also to be enjoyed again are "Late March," the strength of "Elegy,"
the haunting "Two Suitcases,"
and the evocative "Cotton Candy" and "Special Orders."

When read again, I will copy out the memorable ones,
and sadly donate the "I, I, I" book.

Curated collection with author biographies.Excellent way to read great poetry from a diverse group of poets and learn about the poets.

My knowledge of poetry is woefully lacking and I picked this anthology to go knees deep in the topic. I found a lot of poets whose work I love (such as Allison Davis, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Erin Hoover, Hai-Dang Phan) and others (won't name names here) whose work I found to be average or poor quality. What turned me off was the deluge of white (I looked them up), old (per their bios) or dead (also in their bios) men who seemed to overflow between the few women or people of color. The editor remarks in the opening notes there were a lot of poets new or new to him but I find it hard to believe he had no clue about how many of these old or dead white guys ESTABLISHED (and this is crucial) poets were in the field when he put this together. This lack of inclusion of emerging or genre-defying work is lazy and erasure of others who don't fit the old, dead, or white guy labels. (The argument being made for the dead poets, many decades passed, is the poem was published in 2015 so it counts. Which if you died in 2015 is fine but if you died in 1995 and it's now edited in a posthumous work? No.)

Overall, the anthology introduced me to a lot of forms and styles of poetry as well as introducing me to some poets whose work I plan on following so it's not a terrible loss. I would give this anthology 3.5 stars on the homogenization of the works selected and lack of inclusion but I upped it to four due to education gleaned and poets I'm now introduced to.

The title of this book is misleading. It does not tell a beginner (or an experienced reader, for that matter) how to read a poem. I wish the publisher had called it "How to Fall in Love with Poetry."
The author shares his own views on reading and interpreting poems. And he seems to assume that his audience has read a lot of poetry. I mean a LOT.
An enjoyable read, but frustrating in being written for an audience not like me.

I am in the process of making friends with a poet. So I decided to read a book of poetry, and figured a Best Of meant that I wouldn't have to suffer through a bunch of drivel. Of course, now that I've written the first two sentences of this review, I'm thinking I should have planned and made it in iambic pentameter or something, which would mean looking up exactly what iambic pentameter is because I think what I think iambic pentametic is (da da da da da da da; da da da da da da da da) may just be a rhythm that children's books are often written in.

So I don't read much poetry. I know that I like reading poems that rhyme, but then (I thought quite hard on this) I realized that saying I like reading poems that rhyme really means I like reading When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, because very few poems rhymed in Best American Poetry 2016 and, the ones that did, I didn't enjoy as much as the ones that didn't. I read a few poems from the anthology each day, letting them shine on me like equatorial sunshine. That's what I think good poetry should do, make you feel like one is standing in a southern Italian sun, by the beach but not on the beach, with that white light we don't get here (too far north). Clarity. To be of pure white light is how I described my daughter; good poetry should be like that.

For the most part, Best American Poetry 2016 was like that. I felt cleansed.

Best American Poetry 2016 edited by Edward Hirsch went on sale September 6, 2016.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I mostly used this book to discover new poems to love. Among them: Yehuda Amichai's "A Pity. We Were Such a Good Invention," Delmore Schwartz's "Baudelaire," the last lines of Robert Frost's "Desert Places," Nazim Hikmet's "Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison" and "On Living," Tadeusz Rozewicz's "In the Midst of Life," Wislawa Szymborska's "Children of Our Age" and "Reality Demands," WCW's "Aspohdel, That Greeny Flower," and reawakened my interest in Anglo-Saxon poetry.

Heartbreakingly beautiful, courageous, tragic and (somehow) triumphant.

I picked up this book because I know little of poetry. I remember bits and pieces from my literature classes, but nothing that could really help me learn more about it. I believe this book is to go hand in hand with Hirsch's book How to Read a Poem. Alas I have not read that book either, though I ordered it from Amazon and never received it.

I did find this book extremely helpful. I think it would make a great reference book for students, poets, or laymen like me. It's probably not a complete glossary even though it has over 700 pages of definitions and examples. I love the laid-back way Hirsch explains things. It's not over the top or too wordy. He really does make it easy for the average person to understand.

Even though I not an expert, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about poetry. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Read more at http://www.toreadornottoread.net/2014/04/review-poets-glossary.html#FDX9ypWICcBq...

Worth a read for lines like "The morning swung open like an iron gate" and poems like "Green Figs" (I need to live like that crooked tree— / solitary, bittersweet, and utterly free—")

I loved this book. Hirsch's love for poets and poetry was infectious for me, and I found myself digging up all kinds of poetry online while I was reading it and after I was finished. I have another Hirsch book on my shelf, and I can't wait to read it!