Edward Hirsch

External videos
External videos
	Interview with Edward Hirschat BigThink February 25, 2010, 34 mins, video.
	Edward Hirsch on falling in love with poetry,HoCoPoLitSo, May 1, 2012
	A Conversation on Writing with Edward Hirsch,ConnectLiterature,May 7, 2012

Edward M. Hirsch(born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a nationalbestsellerabout reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, includingThe Living Fire: New and Selected Poems(2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work, andGabriel: A Poem(2014), a book-length elegy for his son thatThe New Yorkercalled "a masterpiece of sorrow." He has also published five prose books about poetry. He is president of theJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundationin New York City.

Life

Hirsch was born inChicago.He had a childhood involvement with poetry, which he later explored atGrinnell Collegeand theUniversity of Pennsylvania,where he received aPhDin folklore. He is Jewish.

Hirsch was a professor of English atWayne State University.In 1985, he joined the faculty at theUniversity of Houston,where he spent 17 years as a professor in the Creative Writing Program and Department of English. He was appointed the fourth president of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation on September 3, 2002. He holds seven honorary degrees.

Career

Hirsch is a well-known advocate for poetry whose essays have been published in theAmerican Poetry Review,The New York Times Book Review,The New York Review of Books,and elsewhere. He wrote a weekly column on poetry forThe Washington Post Book Worldfrom 2002-2005, which resulted in his bookPoet’s Choice(2006). His other prose books includeResponsive Reading(1999),The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration(2002), andA Poet's Glossary(2014), a complete compendium of poetic terms. He is the editor ofTransforming Vision: Writers on Art(1994),Theodore Roethke’s Selected Poems(2005) andTo a Nightingale(2007). He is the co-editor ofA William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and AppreciationsandThe Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology(2008). He also edits the series "The Writer’s World" (Trinity University Press).

Hirsch's first collection of poems,For the Sleepwalkers,received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets^[1]and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. His second book,Wild Gratitude,received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1986. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship^[2]in 1985 and a five-yearMacArthur Fellowshipin 1997. He received theWilliam Riley Parker Prizefrom the Modern Language Association for the best scholarly essay inPMLAfor the year 1991. He has also received anIngram Merrill FoundationAward, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature. He is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Hirsch's book,How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry(1999), was a surprise bestseller and is widely taught throughout the country.

Works

Poetry collections

For the Sleepwalkers,(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981)
Wild Gratitude,(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986)
The Night Parade,(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)
Earthly Measures,(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994)ISBN 0-679-76566-2
On Love,(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998)
Lay Back the Darkness(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)ISBN 0-375-41521-1
Special Orders(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)ISBN 0-307-26681-8
The Living Fire: New And Selected Poems(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010)ISBN 978-0375710032
Gabriel: A Poem(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2014)ISBN 978-0-385-35357-1
Stranger By Night(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2020)ISBN 978-0-525-65778-1

Non-fiction books

Transforming Vision: Writers on Art,Selected and Introduced by Edward Hirsch, (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994)ISBN 0-8212-2126-4
How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry,(New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999)ISBN 0-15-100419-6
Responsive Reading,(1999)
'Introduction' in John Keats,Complete Poems and Selected Letters of John Keats,(New York: Modern Library, 2001)ISBN 0-375-75669-8
The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Expression,(New York: Harcourt Brace, 2002)
Poet's Choice,(New York: Harcourt, 2006)ISBN 0-15-101356-X
A Poet's Glossary,(Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014)ISBN 978-0-15-101195-7
100 Poems To Break Your Heart,(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2021)ISBN 978-0544931886
The Heart of American Poetry,(Library of America,2022)ISBN 978-1598537260

Editor

Transforming Vision: Writers on Art,(The Art Institute of Chicago/ Bulfinch Press, 1994)ISBN 978-0821221266
A William Maxwell Portrait,(Norton, 2004)ISBN 978-0393057713
Theodore Roethke: Selected Poems,(The Library of America, 2005)ISBN 978-1931082785
Irish Writers on Writing,edited with Eavan Boland, (Trinity University Press, 2007)ISBN 9781595340320
Polish Writers on Writing,edited with Adam Zagajewski, (Trinity University Press, 2007)ISBN 9781595340337
To a Nightingale: Poems from Sappho to Borges,(Braziller, 2007)ISBN 978-0807616277
The Making of a Sonnet,(Norton, 2008)ISBN 978-0393333534
Hebrew Writers on Writing,edited with Peter Cole (Trinity University Press, 2008)ISBN 9781595340528
Nineteenth-Century American Writers on Writing,edited with Brenda Wineapple (Trinity University Press, 2010)ISBN 9781595340696
Chinese Writers on Writing,edited with Arthur Sze (Trinity University Press, 2010)ISBN 9781595340634
Romanian Writers on Writing,edited with Norman Manea, (Trinity University Press, 2011)ISBN 9781595340825
100 Poems To Break Your Heart,(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021)ISBN 978-0-544-93188-6

References

^The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1985.New York: Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. 1984. p. 414.ISBN 0-911818-71-5.
^"Edward Hirsch".Poetry Foundation.Retrieved4 March2020.

External links

[1] The World Almanac and Book of Facts 1985.New York: Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc. 1984. p. 414.ISBN 0-911818-71-5.

[pf-2] "Edward Hirsch".Poetry Foundation.Retrieved4 March2020.

[1]

[2]

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