“In my poems though, as you say, the comic arrived fairly late. This doubtless has something to do with growing older. A person who's seen a bit of the world can't help but notice how foolish is the self-centeredness we bring to our tiny slice of existence.” WorldPersonsSelfHelpingBitsExistenceGrowingLateFoolishTinyComicGrowing OldGrowing OlderSelf CenterednessCenteredness Author:Jane Hirshfield
“Poems give us permission to be unsure, in ways we must be if we are ever to learn anything not already known. If you look with open eyes at your actual life, it's always going to be the kind of long division problem that doesn't work out perfectly evenly. Poems let you accept the multiplicity and complexity of the actual, they let us navigate the unnavigable, insoluble parts of our individual fates and shared existence.” IfsWayGivingLooksKindLongProblemEyeIndividualExistenceKnownAcceptingFateWork OutComplexityDivisionPermissionNavigateMultiplicityUnsureOpen EyesActual Life Author:Jane Hirshfield
“Immensity is always there, but we so often become numb to it, or deceive ourselves into thinking our own lives and selves are what's large. Step into the ocean or walk on Mount Tamalpais, and that kind of amnesia and self-centeredness isn't possible. Enter the natural world at all, you see existence emerge, ripen, fall and continue, and you can't help but feel more tender towards self and others. That summoning into the large and the shared is what poems exist also to do.” ThinkingWorldFeelsKindSelfHelpingFallNaturalWalksExistenceStepsOceanDeceivingNatural WorldNumbAmnesiaImmensitySelf CenterednessCenterednessSummoning Author:Jane Hirshfield
“Sam Hamill is a writer unabashedly taking his place within the community of literature and the community of all sentient beings-his fidelity is to the magnificent truth of existence, and to its commensurate singing.” LiteratureCommunityExistenceSingingMagnificentFidelitySentient Beings Author:Jane Hirshfield
“I write because to write a new sentence, let alone a new poem, is to cross the threshold into both a larger existence and a profound mystery. A thought was not there, then it is. An image, a story, an idea about what it is to be human, did not exist, then it does. With every new poem, an emotion new to the heart, to the world, speaks itself into being.” WorldWritingHumansHeartDoeIdeasStoriesSpeakEmotionExistenceMysteryCrossesProfoundSentencesThreshold Author:Jane Hirshfield
“Existence itself is nothing if not an amazement. Good poems restore amazement.” IfsExistenceAmazement Author:Jane Hirshfield
