RaveVoxGranted, some poems are thorny, difficult tangles requiring significant work from the reader to comprehend. But some, like the ones in Jane Hirshfield’s new book...are small gifts: morsels of meaning that slide right past your poetry defenses and lodge in your head ... it’s a measured approach, calm and contemplative ... Hirshfield’s poems treat the natural world as something marvelous and rare, something to be cared for and loved ... This is what Hirshfield does so well: She gives you the observation of life as we’re all living it and the personal tragedy life entails, and then she slips in themes of planetary crisis. It’s the kind of gut punch good poems provide, the solid fist inside the velvet glove ... She is responsible with every word choice, every line a deliberate beat, each poem its own chrysalis of meaning ... This is a book to read front to back, then at random, then front to back again ... Hirshfield’s poems are no less rich for being generally likable and accessible. You don’t have to love poetry to love these poems. There is no secret key required to unlock them. They speak and we all hear them loud and clear.
