Poet's choice

227 Pages·2006·8.633 MB·English

by  Hirsch, Edward

POET'S CHOICE
*
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EDWARD HIRSCH
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authorof ~ov$toReadaPoern
PRAISE FOR
Poet's Choice
"Hirsch remains much the same enthusiast, much the same writer of
apt summation, the memorable insight, but now less explicitly the
teacher and more, with the reader, a partner in delight."
-America: The National Catholic Weekly
"If many of [Hirsch's] choices here are about loss, there's an almost
playful quality to the scope of the selections. He focuses on everything
from poems by international writers unfamiliar to most mainstream
readers, to poems about sports, Nebraska, insomnia, and New York
. . .
City. The unifying thread is his pleasure in telling us about them.
If one of the great joys of reading poetry is sharing your favorites, talk-
ing about them and trading them like baseball cards, Hirsch can count
himself as a lucky man." -The Arizona Republic
"[Hirsch] presents his personal overview of poets and their works from
the ancients to today." -Pittsburgh Post Gazette
"Combine passionate intellect and boyish enthusiasm and you have
Edward Hirsch." -Monterq County Herald
"Here is one poet's deep and terribly personal engagement with the po-
etry of others, rendered with the electricity of one who truly believes
that 'poetry speaks with the greatest intensity against the effacement
of individuals, the obliteration of communities, the destruction sf na-
. .
ture. Poetry is a necessary part of our planet.' He is every bit as
dedicated to poets in translation, from Borges to Basho and Li Po, as
he is to poets in his own language. And his short pieces around these
. . .
poems are exemplary in their clarity, passion and precision. And a
very personal choice this is, from Aztec poets to his lesser-known
American contemporaries." -The Buffalo News
"In the elegant and precious Poet? Choice, Edward Hirsch, a prominent
. .
poet, critic and educator, uses the work of. different poets to illus-
trate to the average reader how to appreciate diverse pieces of poetry."
-Deseret Morning News
"With Poet? Choice, [Hirsch] offers a delightful tutorial in both classic
and contemporary verse." -Bookpage Poet's Choice
"Hirsch includes the work of more than 130p oets from across the globe
and across centuries, with poems from the ancients alongside those of
the most contemporary of poets creating a pleasurable introduction to
poetry. Using an essay form with stanzas embedded, he makes coher-
ent arguments and offers excellent illustrations of how each work and
the human experience are intertwined. A mini-course in world poetry,
this accessible, learned, and relevant book is highly recommended."
-Libra y Journal
"Eclectic and idiosyncratic, Hirsch's choices are unified by astute ex-
cerpting and keen commentary." -Publishers Weekly
"Hirsch, a natural-born teacher as well as a poet, shares his extraordi-
nary erudition and love for poetry with lucidity and intensity, empath-
ically summarizing the lives of poets past and present, and offering
poems to readers as though they are food or benedictions, gossip or
prescriptions. . . . Hirsch's aesthetic is unerring, and his interpretations
are profound as he considers our 'collective destiny' and takes measure
of poetry's encompassing vision." -Booklist
Poet's Choice
POETRY
-==%
For the Sleepwalkers (1981)
Wild Gratitude (1986)
The Night Parade (1989)
EDWARD HIRSCH
Earthly Measures (1994)
On Love (1998)
Lay Back the Darkness (2003)
PROSE
How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999)
Resp~nsiveR eading (1999)
The Demon and the Angel: Searching$r the Source of
Artistic Inspiration (2002)
EDITOR
Transfirming Exion: Writers on Art (1994)
William Maxwell: Memories andAppreciations (2004)
with Charles Baxter and Michael Collier
Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems (2~5)
A HARVEST BOOK HARCOURT, INC.
Orlando Austin Neu York San Diego Toronto di don
Copyright O 2006 by Edward Hirsch For Andrk Bernard
ALI rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, eleccronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be
submitted online at www.harcourt.com1contact or mailed to the
following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,
6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Hirsch, Edward.
Poet's choicelEdward Him&.-1st ed.
p. cm.
I. Poetry-History and criticism. I. Title.
PNIIII.HJ~ 2006
808.81-dczz zoo5026890
ISBN 978-0-15-101356-2
ISBN 978-0-15-603267-4 (pbk)
Text set in Adobe Garamond
Designed by Cathy Riggs
Printed in the United States of America
First Harvest edition 2007
C E G I K J H P D .
Permissions acknowledgments appear on pages 40?@9,
which constitute a continuation of the copyright page.
CONTENTS
. ..
INTRODUCTION Xlll
PART I
I. Nightingales (Jorge Luis Borges) 7
2. Gerard Manley Hopkins ("God's Grandeur," "Pied Beauty") 10
3. Caedmon ("Caedmon's Hymn," Denise Levertov's "Caedmon") 13
4. Olympian Odes (Pindar, Bacchylides) 16
5. The Greek Anthology (Pure Pagan) I9
6. Sappho (fragment 31) 22
7. The Poet as Maker (F. T. Prince) 25
8. The Ars Poetica (Blaga Dimitrova) 2 8
9. The Bardic Order (Eavan Boland) 31
10. Aztec Poets (Nezahualc6yot1, Ayocuan Cuetzpaltzin) 34
11. Riddles (Daniel Hoffman, Ella Bat-T~ion,E ytan Eytan) 3 6
12. Charms (Thomas Campion, Kathy Fagan) 39
13. John Clare ("Lines: 'I Am') 42
14. Christmas Poems (Thomas Hardy, Robert Fitzgerald) 47
15. Charlotte Mew ("Rooms," "The Call") 50
16. W. B. Yeats ("Cuchulain Comforted) 53
17. Rabindranath Tagore (Final Poems) 56
18. Giuseppe Belli ("Night of Terror," "The Bosses of Rome") 59
19. Giuseppe Ungaretti ("In Memory of") 62
20. Eugenio Montale ("Sit the noon out. . . ," "The Eel") 65
21. Rainer Maria Rilke ("The Panther," "The Gazelle") 68
22. Self-Portraits (Rainer Maria Rilke, Frank Bidart) 71
23. Ernst Stadler ("The Saying) 74
24. Nelly Sachs ("Butterfly") 77
25. ~ ~ lJ~~IJ'X 'AlI- (c,.ljic~~E t'~~,~:\~ Y l'~i 1 j.!. ,~lll~~~Si[o,s!.i~~ii( l'"~1~i~ l i~.o,j;"' '7;)A T). [ poctt.y") 171
26. MLIxJ ato\, ('.-The Regy;.ir lX'u!~ici(~11 >:. I'!.. ..' ji. ;o~.L~uei? lior-gc,\ ("?'hc, ISnil:il~,1\") I,-'4
".l.[lc Yellow S~air\ gLiiil") 54. Ocr~ivioI' az ("Bc.t\rcc,n (~;r1ins :iiid St.1 iris")
1;s
27. lnK)llll~(iC~h ip ~11:l.ticIl\~t. 1111, h1.11i 112! , ~t~~,\';l) 5 j. Juli:~d c 13~ir~(o"sS i,~\crl ll") 1
28. hfarin:l 'Il\~i.[.lcx["~C.)~l> c'll~'J \V~I.I \. ') 76. C:onrenlporary hI~,xi~nPnoe t\ (I?i'i l,ialC/t. ,Z~O;IL,I,IPIII:) I S6
23. \r21inlir KI~lcl)~iik(o"\l~n c,lnt:lrion 11). 1 .i~i~lrtcr," 17. Sleep anJ I'uctr) (S1al.y Rucilc, hl,iric~N cSroni) r J'y
"Russia, I ~ , i iy.o~u . . .") 58. Scottish I1oCtry: h'orm,ln hl,liCaig ("l'l-,ii,c J Clnllie") 19.2
jo. Joseph Brc~dikj(. '',\2.4I, .1!98\0.") 59. I! K. I',lse ("Tl~c I)i\s~~isci") I y,j
31. CLC~IJWLf ilo\~(" C.;itt..) 60. katli1cc.n Riirlr ("Sl~cllu f Crc.:~tiorl") 19;
32. Aci.lin %.lga:jc\~sk[i "AF l,lillc," "l.il.c," '.; :)~liL l'uenll') 61. Yireiltiy Cc111t. ("\\'<l\re La~lilI ,ili~~~.ick~"j '00
33. Ed\ard Kc~ibck( .'?'n/i~;i/I~: L~ji) 62. 71.ho~~C1U I~("ISIt ill Lifc") 2 03
34. '1L111:li Sc~i,l~il(k~>~'z!.iit ) 6 1 t 1 1d l 1 ( [ I 1, '1,; I I c, 206
35. IL~d~iliLl,,:u~iC (2 LVLk(~fitiL, IICL i~~ii~s) 64. AS~J% 11,1\iiJ,\ li ('l\r&ll>ic", ruy
36. Prin~oL evi ("~hcili~") 65. iiectik,.~\r .~/ir:~~(l"iI t'\ Ale, 1'111 Xc~tI lc~tl~L",,L'~~ tll~~l)~") LI2
37. A\1 .~111.111113 ~1'1i' ir~11~1(L"H Ic.\scci XI-c,T he.! \:.~Io Suw
2nd 110 Nul Ilc,i!). . .')
38. KaJj.., X.ic,lotio\\~ky(" llt:~.cifill coil")
jg. Yc1luC],l iinl,ih.ii ("l.errcr- of Ke~onlniend~lriur''~h,!')~, Fachcr's 66. Rt,:iiii~~(gC . I.;. ii"ilii.:~lls, W:ili~ce Stevens)
hte~i~o~-DiJa)l" ) 67. Bil-tli 1'oci;is (Jc!l111 I~L,I-~),L~LI,'~, Jll~pIt,( ~~l)
40. ;\II~~YYCiiIiLIl~L ~t(L1~i ;lc ~!~~i,) 68. The I'oct .I> hloth~.ti-K LltsL I.inicl\, k;~.:l~lccrO~j jip)
41. 'IL~LJ~ IL~IIJIII!I,\IlJi (iI L ilk~iLl l-H;~c~Ii~ i s l ~j ~~kI !;~cI~~cIN~~~") 69. Allcli (;roh\n~~in( .' I-he I~LII~I~c~~')
42. \';nit\ I;ll~ul-?-Cl~,i(i"aF ~L.tIh-e~re W;I~!: I $.L- ., coil~ltry") 70. Sc.unl~)K unitr (" I't~cI'o l-tl.,[ic")
qi. P!otc\c L3c>ctrY( '~~IUIiI ~II,YI~S\ 'l<idiY uu>:>c:':, 71. C l ~ i l ~(~I<OlII~~,Ic~ tf~,i~j.d~~,dl)
44. 1hIiiLJ~ 7~1 ~li<ul~(o.5Lli/, ~I!: !!~;!' 72. N.iolni 3 L ! 7/1r I/,/,o j'C%~d/tL/)(~,l,!~
45. Ljnl -[.lii 1~)I > XL~~~:I.)I~ l~)(~"ll~llL 1rL1~ lchgl'~ l ll~f," 73. C~~-:l!ic\~).ir(~I~J:o~tt-~i.~,X ~iec clcLkct-,1 i ~ \ i ) , ~I~ie~c~)
"Xis1t! 1 i~iti,~"..~ ~IIII.';1 I,I 74. Jclh11 C,~-cc~~!~~iI'\Y'l(~"iltctli~c~~t-t ~o~!!")
4c,. A1ig~lci 1 ~crli.i~;J('c~~>, !! IJL..!rtC JI?[s o c111 JII; l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ r " ) 7j . IL~\~lh~([[<lIl, I:,II.L[I 3\l~oj
47. Ci.\ar \lillCic~( " I !lr Hi;iiL i !i.ra!di," "XI,l\\") 76. '1 '111. iln~c~ic! iIi'I O\L I'oe~n \!iu,,~I ! 1:ciion)
48~S uffrri11~[I <LI~IO~IL~LI~III,:II <.&~Vr Llllcju) 77. '%'~I~~JIIL CL,,., 1 , \\'~I~~JII~S ("'i'llc !;\L[l~lcBrc *A!I--',!~
49. bclf-N.111ii11,g( C~,II-~LDJ~I U~II~JIc~ AO1dlI-:~idJL ,. LII. \'~IcJo) .;8. Ally 1.01vcIl , I IIC T~xi"j
jo. I1~li1loS c~r!lcIa( "Di~eb 3 \'\. ',11,(11") -') C c o ~O~prl: , r "I'aal~n")
51. Nicallc]l. I'LlrrJ ['.t<c,llc,rC ;uLi\rt .' "1 I:~l\clj .lc!. ' ~.~-j~l~li~lg So Y~IIIK~i i~li[~!I. icilucli~li,O lIli. i:)u)
1'i.c SJiJ") 81. 11.5<lllll[\ Hroc ,: ,, f I'U~U,~)
x CONTENTS CONTENTS xi
82. Poetry Responds to Suffering (Wallace Stevens, Mark Strand) 263 113. Nicholas Christopher ("Haiku," "Tr6picon)
355
83. Kenneth Rexroth ("Delia Rexroth") 2 66 "4. Philip Schultz (Living in the Past)
358
84. Muriel Rukeyser ("Letter to the Front," "The Sixth II~.D eborah Digges (Trapeze)
361
Night: Waking) 2 69 116. Susan Stewart (Cobmbarium)
3 64
85. Dailiness (Randall Jarrell, Marie Howe) 2 72 117. Stuart Dischell ("A Tenant at Will")
3 67
86. John Berryman ("Henry's Understanding") 275 118. Olena Kalytiak Davis ("six apologies, Lord)
370
87. Robert Penn Warren ("After the Dinner Party") 278 119. Sarah Arvio (Eitsfiom the Seventh)
3 73
88. Howard Nemerov ("Einstein & Freud & Jack") 2 81 120. Dan Chiasson (Thc After& ofobjects)
376
89. Kenneth Koch (New Addresses) 284 121. Catherine Barnett (hto A$K~Sp heres Such Holes Are Pierced)
379
90. Swimming (Maxine Kumin, William Stafford) 287 122. A. Van Jordan (M-A-C-N-0-L-I-A)
3 82
91. Robert Bly (The Night Abraham Called to the Stars) 290 123. Nebraska Poetry (Loren Eiseley, Ted Kooser)
3 85
92. Gary Snyder ("Riprap") 292 124. Basketball Poems (B. H. Fairchild)
387
93. Donald Justice ("The Pupil") 295 125. Tony Hoagland ("Migration")
390
94. Daniel Hughes ("Too Noble") 298 126. Martin Espada ("The Prisoners of Saint Lawrence")
393
95. Dorothea Tanning (A Table of Content) 301 127. Young Asian American Women Poets (Quan Barry,
96. Jane Mayhall (Sleeping Late on Judgment Day) 304 Suji Kwock Kim)
396
97. William Matthews ("Grief") 307 128. Birdsong (Ruth Stone)
399
98. Vietnam War Poems (David Ignatow, Yusef Komunyakaa) 3x0 129. Robert Pinsky ("If You Could Write One Great Poem, What
99. New York City (Paul Goodman, Deborah Garrison) 313 Would It Be About?")
4 02
100. Tom Sleigh ("New York American Spell, 2001") 316 130. Farewell (Bash6, Li Po, Wdt Whitman)
404
101. Thomas James (Letters to a Stranger) 319
102. Stan Rice ("Monkey Hill") 323 NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
103. Roland Flint ("Seasonal, 1991," "2-26-91") 326 PUBLICATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
104. M. Wyrebek ("Night Owl") 329 INDEX
105. Roberta Spear, Ernesto Trejo ("Meditation"; "Some Sparrows") 332
106. Peter Evenvine ("How It Is," "Distance") 335
107. Michael Fried (The Next Bend in the Road) 337
108. Michael Ryan ("God Hunger," "Reminder") 34 0
109. Louise Gliick ("The Seven Ages") 343
110. Bill Knott ("Goodbye," "The Unsubscriber,"
"Death," "Crux") 34 6
111. Stuart Dybek (Streets in Their Own Ink) 349
112. Mark Jarman (TO the Green Man) 352
INTRODUCTION
SUN-STRUCK MORNINGS, rainy afternoons, starry nights of poetry,
come back to me now, remember me. Do not desert me, lifetime of
encounters, lifelines, sentencings. I stumbled upon poetry as a teen-
ager in Chicago-I was at sea and it offered me a raft-and it has
sustained me for the past forty years. I have carried poetry with me
like a flashlight-how many small books have I crammed into my
pockets?-and used it to illuminate other lives, other worlds. I dis-
covered myself in discovering others, and I have lived with these
poems until they have become part of the air that I breathe. I hope
they will become part of the reader's world too.
Many of us remember with an eerie precision where we were when
we first read certain crucial things:
I remember the spidery light in the second-floor warehouse of
Wertheimer Box and Paper Company where I pored over Pablo
Nerudds "The Heights of Macchu Picchu," which I then shared with
a couple of Puerto Rican workers whose job it was to feed corrugated
cartons through enormous iron machines. "Sube a nacer conmigo, her-
mano,"one of them quoted ("Rise to be born with me, brother").
I remember the circle of lamplight that ringed the page in my col-
lege dorm room where I was first stung by Gerard Manley Hopkins's
so-called terrible sonnets ("I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day").
These lonely poems made me feel less lonely-I recognized their
inner desolation-and I read through the night until I washed up on
the crisp Iowa morning ("There lives the dearest freshness deep down
things").
I recall the cramped bookstores and branch libraries, the cafis and
fast-food joints, the book-lined studies. I can still feel the drizzly home-
sickness of a cafk in London where I was pierced by Ezra Pound's adap-
tations of Li Po. I think of the bugged hotel room in Leningrad-it was
more like a closet-where I was mesmerized by Osip Mandelstam's
xiv INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION xu
This book seeks to befriend the reader on behalf of poetry, which
"Tristi$ ("I have studied the science of goodbyesn).A nd I do not for-
trembles with sensuous music, human presence. Each of these short
get the dusky blues of an empty Warsaw cafd in midwinter where I was
pieces contains at least one entire poem that is worth our full atten-
changed by Zbigniew Herbert's "Mr. Cogiton poems ("you were saved
tion. These individual poems-urgent, formal, insistent-need indi-
not in order to live / you have little time you must give testimony").
vidual readers to experience them. It is an honor to introduce and
These poems have had a kind of talismanic power for me, and I
present them to you. My idea throughout is to help unveil them, to
keep them close at hand. I have kept my early loves in poetry nearby;
explain their sometimes challenging formal devices and to provide a
I have held them as a touchstone and a reminder during the years I
context for reading them, whether biographical, literary, or historical.
have been writing this book. They have dreamt with me through the
I hope to accompany the reader in the experience of reading and in-
night; they have been companions of the day. I have tried to remem-
ternalizing a poem, which ultimately bypasses rational mind and
ber throughout that poetry is made by flesh-and-blood human beings.
lodges inside of us. It enters the dream life, and the dream works. It
It is a bloody art. It lives on a human scale and thrives when it is
circulates in the bloodstream.
passed from hand to hand.
Poetry is a means of exchange, a form of reciprocity, a magic to be
Poetry is as ancient as the drawing of a horse at Lascaux, or an
shared, a gift. There has never been a civilization without it. That's
Egyptian hieroglyphic, and yet it also feels especially relevant to a
why I consider poetry-which is, after all, created out of a mouthful
post-9/11 world, a world characterized by disaffection and material-
of air-a human fundamental, like music. It saves something precious
ism, a world alienated from art. The horrors we face daily around the
in the world from vanishing. It sacramentalizes experience. It is an
globe-terrorist bombings, ethnic cleansing, the ravages of the HIV
imaginative act that starts with the breath itself. It arises from breath-
epidemic, children becoming soldiers-challenge us to find meaning
ing. It is a living thing that comes from the body, from the heart and
in the midst of suffering Poetry answers this challenge. It puts us in
lungs, and thus seems hardwired into us. It enters our bodies through
touch with ourselves. It sends us messages from the interior and also
the material stream of language. It moves and dances between speech
connects us to others. It is intimate and secretive; it is generously
and song. These words rhythmically strung together, these electrically
collective.
charged sounds, are one of the ways by which we come to know our-
We live at a time when the pervasive influence of media and con-
selves. A poem beats out time.
sumer culture blurs national boundaries and identities. The poems
Poetry speaks with the greatest intensity against the effacement of
featured in Poet? Choice consistently gapple with death, suffering, and
individuals, the obliteration of communities, the destruction of nature.
loss. They defend the importance of individual lives, and rebel at the
It tries to keep the world from ending by positing itself against obliv-
way individuals are dwarfed by mass culture. They are unaccommo-
ion. The words are marks against erasure. I believe that something in
dating. They portray, and communicate on behalf of, people at the
our natures is realized when we use language as an art to confront and
margins of society: exiles, transplants, rehgees, nomads, people with
redeem our mortality. We need poems now as much as ever. We need
no country, people split between two different countries, split between
these voices to restore us to ourselves in an alienating world. We need
the past and the present. They search for meaning--in language and
the sounds of the words to delineate the states of our being. Poetry is
forms particular only to poetry-in the realm of emptiness, for com-
a necessary part of our planet.
pany in the face of isolation. Poems are always in dialogue with other
poems and in conversation with history, and they invite readers into
that conversation, which offers a particular form of communication,
communion, and fusion.