Review by Booklist Review
In the very last poem in her newest collection, Hirshfield writes, "You will recognize what I'm saying or you will not." And, indeed, her koanlike poems turn slowly on the axis of yes or no, flashing the semaphore of their Zen wisdom. Her imagery is simple in form but iridescent in implication; her meditative focus on stillness is curiously provocative and illuminating, and the veracity of all that Hirshfield has to say about forbearance and loss makes itself felt first and then is clearly understood. As she celebrates the epic strength of the heart, the sweetness of life, and the value of leaving things as they are, of not being forever engaged in altering the perceived world or asserting the self, the reader experiences long moments of peace. In the outstanding and lucid critical essays in Nine Gates, Hirshfield proves that she, like all good poets, is a gifted reader. Using the work of such luminaries as Hopkins, Dickinson, Yeats, Plath, and Ginsberg, she attempts to explicate poetry's "mode of comprehension." Why analyze how poetry works and what poetry is for? Because, Hirshfield explains, "as elsewhere in life, attentiveness only deepens what it regards." And so, in prose every bit as lyrical and sagacious as her poetry, she discusses such elements as originality, indirection, inward-looking and outward-looking perspectives, six forms of poetic "concentration," and the tremendous open-mindedness and courage required for living a truly committed writing life. Happily, this enlightening volume does exactly what Hirshfield hoped it would: it intensifies our response to poetry, hence to life. --Donna Seaman
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
A gifted writer in midcareer, Hirshfield has published her fourth collection of poetry in tandem with a book of essays geared toward the creative writing student. The poems are of the momenteach a single gesture encompassing the dichotomies of presence and absence, life and death, being and not-beingand are heavily influenced by classical Japanese verse Hirshfield helped translate with Mariko Aratani (Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems, by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu) and the Zen Buddhism she has studied for many years: "I turn my blessing like photographs into the light;/ over my shoulder the god of Not-Yet looks on." The best are tragic in their unencumbered vision of human limitation; in one, the speaker listens to a piano played movinglyindeed, even more so, because it is played haltinglyand is ashamed "not at my tears, or even at what has been wasted,/ but to have been dry-eyed so long." Several of the nine essays in Nine Gates originated as lectures presented at writers' conferences. Clear and methodicalsometimes to the point of tediousnessthey discuss the process of poetry with examples from standards like Frost, Yeats, Larkin, Whitman, and a few contemporaries. More individual are the discussions of non-Western verse and aesthetics and the process of translation from Japanese (Hirshfield cannot read Japanese and admits her translations were done cooperatively with a native speaker). In a rare personal confession, she describes herself to the late poet Richard Hugo, whom she did not know: "I don't write much/ about America, or even people. I'd often enough rather/ talk to horses." Indeed, it is the quiet restraint of these writingspoems and prosethat appeals. Recommended.Ellen Kaufman, Dewey Ballantine Law Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
