“It is, of course, we who house poems as much as their words, and we ourselves must be the locus of poetry's depth of newness. Still, the permeability seems to travel both ways: a changed self will find new meanings in a good poem, but a good poem also changes the shape of the self.” SelfPoetryMeaning Author:Jane Hirshfield
“There is more and more I tell no one, strangers nor loves. This slips into the heart without hurry, as if it had never been. And yet, among the trees, something has changed. Something looks back from the trees, and knows me for who I am.” SelfFeelingsPoetryPoemThoughtsSecrets Book:The lives of the heart Source: The lives of the heart
“Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags, being careful between the trees to leave extra room.” SelfSidesRoomsGriefTreeCarefulExtrasBagsCarriePacksMules Author:Jane Hirshfield
“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
“Evolution tells us how to survive; art tells us how it's possible still to live even while knowing that we and all we love will someday vanish. It says there's beauty even in grief, freedom even inside the strictures of form and of life. What's liberating isn't what's simplest; it's the ability to include more and more shadows, colors and possibilities inside any moment's meeting of self and world.” WorldArtStillsSelfMomentsFormAbilityGriefKnowingPossibilityColorEvolutionShadowMeetingsSomedaySimplestLiberating Author:Jane Hirshfield
“The secret of understanding poetry is to hear poetry's words as what they are: the full self's most intimate speech, half waking, half dream. You listen to a poem as you might listen to someone you love who tells you their truest day. Their words might weep, joke, whirl, leap. What's unspoken in the words will still be heard. It's also the way we listen to music: You don't look for extractable meaning, but to be moved.” WayLooksStillsSelfDreamMightUnderstandingSecretHalfHeardSpeechJokesMovedIntimatePoetry IsLeapWakingListening To MusicTruestUnspokenOne You LoveSomeone You Love 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
“Go back to The October Palace, which came out in 1994, and there are poems with windows, doors, the rooms of the gorgeous and vanishing palace that is this ordinary world and ordinary life. Jungian archetype would say the house is a figure for the experienced, experiencing self.” WorldSelfHouseRoomsDoorsFiguresOrdinaryWindowGorgeousPalacesOctoberOrdinary LifeArchetypeVanishingOrdinary World Author:Jane Hirshfield
“Houses are fundamental metaphors for self, world, permeability, transition, interiority, exteriority, multiplicity, and the power to move from one state of being to another.” WorldSelfStatesMovingHouseFundamentalsMetaphorTransitionMultiplicity Author:Jane Hirshfield
