warm blasts of beautiful…

Book review:

The Asking: New and Selected Poems

by Jane Hirshfield (b1953)

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2023

343 pages

There is lots to like and lots to pass over in Jane Hirshfield’s poetry.

Most often her style boils down to the “wild child” type, apparently she’s not too concerned with the idea of “the best words in the best order.” Many of her poems strike me as disorderly, albeit enthusiastic.

I think it’s worth reading through Hirshfield’s The Asking collection to get the taste and the occasional warm blast of beautiful insight and intuition. Here’s a taste:

“Stone did not become apple….Yet joy still stays joy.” (from “Counting, New Year’s Morning, What Powers Yet Remain to Me”)

“She closed her eyes,

opened her mouth

to receive the end of her life.

Its last tasting.” (from “A Day Just Ends”)

“The impossible closes around

like a smooth lake

on an early morning swim.” (“Everything That Is Not You”)

“How sad they are,

the promises we never return to.” (from “Autumn Quince”)

* * * * * *

Book review: The Myths of Tet

How people get killed by lies…

by Edwin E. Moïse

click here

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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 53 free verse and haiku poems,

and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)

and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”