"is the author of six books of poetry, several translations and two collections of essays. Her most recent volume After, on being published in both the US and UK, was nominated for the UK's T. S. Eliot Award and named one of the Washington Post's best books of 2006. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Academy of American Poets and the National Endowment for the Arts; other awards include the Poetry Center Book Award, Columbia University's Translation Center Award and the Commonwealth Club of California Poetry Medal.
Her work gravitates toward the point where the philosophical, emotional, and sensual realms intersect...." See HERE.
I like to read poetry, I do not like, as much, to read about poetry. I think a poem (or a poet) can be done to death by over analysing it and over-interviewing her/him. There are numerous interviews and articles about this poet online. I'll leave it to any interested reader to Google for 'em. I tried to glean enough for a post from one or two, but soon found them a tad irritating. Sorry. I'm sure Ms Hirshfield, and all of her interviewers, would find my views equally irritating!
There could be some astro-irritability here for me - though I'm not sure from whence it could come. Her natal Sun is less than a degree from my natal Jupiter in Pisces. There are other conjunctions too her Aries Mars conjoins my Saturn (maybe this!) Her Venus is close to my Aries Moon, Her Moon and Uranus in Cancer are close to my ascendant. She doesn't have much Earth - only Jupiter in Taurus and it's close to my North Node of Moon. I think the irritation factor must be her Pisces Mercury irritating my more down-to-earth Capricorn Mercury. I'll leave it at that.
I do like this poem of Ms Hirschfield's though:
Optimism
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs–all this resinous, unretractable earth.
And this one:
A Person Protests to Fate
A person protests to fate:
"The things you have caused
me most to want
are those that furthest elude me."
Fate nods.
Fate is sympathetic.
To tie the shoes, button a shirt,
are triumphs
for only the very young,
the very old.
During the long middle:
conjugating a rivet
mastering tango
training the cat to stay off the table
preserving a single moment longer than this one
continuing to wake whatever has happened the day before
and the penmanships love practices inside the body.
The two examples you provide of her poetry are fairly straight-forward, with direct meaning. Some poets can be interpreted in multiple layers of meaning, usually dependent upon the reader, but that's the fun of most poetry. These two poems read more like pleasant rhetoric in a novel than actual poetry.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy looking at astrological aspects between myself and others when I feel more than neutral about someone, whether positive or negative. My old Solar Fire had a synastry sub-program with interpretation that I utilized and was all too often surprised by the program's ability to accurately determine the subtle and-or gross variations.
mike ~ I know what you mean, and I've found that poets of the younger generation (than, for instance, W.B. Yeats, Frost, Eliot etc.) are more likely to write in this style.
ReplyDeleteBillie Collins does too - I enjoy many of his poems. Different times, different styles - possibly matching their astro-atmosphere ?
Yes, my now defunct astrology software had a synastry tool too. I didn't use it much though, preferring to come to my own conclusions. ;-)
"Training the cat to stay off the table"
ReplyDelete... hah, who is she kidding!
kidd.
Twilight ~ I don't read much poetry -especially poetry written by contemporary poets- so it's always interesting to learn about someone else I've missed.:)
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, last night I found myself becoming irritated with something I was reading. I think the author's natal Sun-Neptune square (in Gemini-Virgo) and close aspects to my natal Saturn in Sagittarius probably had a lot to do with it.
Anonymous/kidd ~ Indeed! And what's this about conjugating rivets? A cat will stay off a table as much as a sturdy rivet will put up with being conjugated. ;-)
ReplyDeleteLB ~ Yes, I always wonder about such minor irritations - they're the opposite of that comfortable feeling one can get from other writers/actors/musicians. I have found, when I've made the effort to investigate, that the comfortable usually coincides with some common astrological factor between myself and the other. :-)
ReplyDeleteRiv (n), something or other.
ReplyDeleterivet = a small Riv.
rivet = a foreign frog sound.
river = lots of wet rivs.
rivoli = rueing the day you spent somewhere.
riverse = back currents.
rivazza = a double corner before the pits, after a downhill.
kidd.
Twilight ~ Actually, I don't mind being made uncomfortable by something I'm reading, so long as it challenges me to think more deeply or honestly about the subject matter.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite author right now is someone whose Pluto and Mercury are square (and at the midpoint) of my chart's Libra-Aries oppositions (including the Nodes), while his nodal axis forms a Grand Cross with my Chiron-Uranus opposition. Our Saturns are conjunct though, and his Jupiter is exactly conjunct my MC (conjunct the fixed star, Aldebaran).
So far I've read 3 of his books and I'm still hungry for more. His books probably would've demanded too much of me when I was younger, so I'm grateful I discovered him when I was older and more receptive.
Anon/kidd ~ Chuckles.... and lols! That conjugation rivals an old favourite of mine from schoolgirl Latin - goodness knows why *this* embedded itself in my memory: means this/these -
ReplyDeletehic haec hoc,
hoc hac hoc
huius huius huius
(I've forgotten what came next)
:-D
LB ~ Challenge is good for us, I guess. I embrace comfort more though. :-)
ReplyDeleteThe only author whose every novel I've read, and thoroughly enjoyed, except one which I do own but a very old copy with print so teeny teeny tiny - need to get another copy : Howard Spring (British, Sun in Aquarius, though not much else links closely).
And John Galsworthy (also British) is a very easy read for me too. I've read 5 of his this year, He had a couple of links to my chart: His natal Aqua Moon just 5 degrees from my Sun; and his natal Jupiter just 2 degrees from my own natal Jupiter. :-)
Twilight ~ John Galsworthy, author of "The Forsyte Saga"? We just watched the mini-series.
ReplyDeleteRight now, everything in my reading pile is non-fiction ~ I go back and forth, alternating between two or three different books, all with similar or complementary themes. With one notable exception (a paperback I read last year which was loosely based on a historical character), it's been several years since I've read any fiction. When I do, I enjoy fiction set in the 1800's, maybe earlier.
My tastes have changed a lot over the years.:)
LB ~ Yes that is he! I read the Forsyte Trilogy then two sequels. There are more, but I've given them a rest and am reading a time travel novel now. :-) Have seen both TV versions of The Saga, the early 1970s version, and the more recent one with Damian Lewis as Soames - didn't think either caught the characters exactly (especially Irene) , but enjoyed them both anyway.
ReplyDelete