There has never been a great poet who wasn't also a great reader of poetry. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I grew up in a middle-class house without books, without art. No one around me wrote poetry or even read it. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Each book should be an entity unto itself, with its own structure, character, life, name. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think the deepest thing is that many fiction writers tell stories but are not elegant writers. But, we're not writing journalism… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
As a reader you have a task to do, you have something to do. You bring your experience to it. It's not… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There's always some place to go. You don't need workshops, you don't need friends necessarily, you can be befriended by literature itself. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I was surprised recently to find a book called "Poetry in Persons" that's coming out about visit to poets to a class… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The idea of how to read a poem is based on the idea that poetry needs you as a reader. That the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Readers bring their own experiences, their own range of - their own wisdom, their own knowledge, their own insights to poem and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
After my grandfather died I went down to the basement of my family house where my family kept books, anthologies and things… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Books and newspapers assume a "common reader" that is, a person who knows the things known by other literate persons in the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
A novel takes place over time. It's a historical narrative, and it needs to have a series of peaks and valleys and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Now, I do say, "It's possible. You might be the first. I'm not saying it's impossible, but the odds are very much… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Then I found another one, grandpa's poem. It turned out it had been written by Emily Brontë and it wasn't my grandfather's… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I would be happier if people who went through MFA programs also were already, by then, deeply committed readers of poetry because… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I was once doing a question and answer period with the novelist Jane Smiley in a bookstore and someone asked us what… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There's been no poet, no great poet in the history of poetry who hasn't also been a great reader of poetry. This… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The sole literary presence from my childhood was my grandfather, a Jewish immigrant from Latvia, who eccentrically copied poems into the backs… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And when my second book had come out, "Wild Gratitude," I went to Pearl London's class and she worked through different drafts… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I find great consolation in having a lot of poetry books around. I believe that writing poetry and reading it are deeply… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
When you find it you become the secret addressee of a literary text and I felt that their reader had been left… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
My focus is on the reader and that the poet's job is not to inspire himself or herself. The poet's job is… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
The idea of a poem as a message in a bottle means that it's sent out towards some future reader, and the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
There are many poets that use as my models. In my first book of poems, I had several for the "Sleepwalkers," I… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share Image
And my experience is the best titles, for me, emerge in the process of writing. They don't usually come at the very beginning and… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“I did not know the work of mourning Is like carrying a bag of cement Up a mountain at night The mountaintop is not… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“Fall" Fall, falling, fallen. That’s the way the season Changes its tense in the long-haired maples That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I find great consolation in having a lot of poetry books around. I believe that writing poetry and reading it are deeply intertwined. I've… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I had feelings that I didn't know what to do with, and I felt better when I started writing them. I thought of it… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
I think in terms of educating a group of readers, MFA programs are very good. I just think the model of MFA programs in… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
“Jonson wrote a poem and called his son His best piece of poetrie A lovely line a little loathsome I loved that poem once… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
After my grandfather died I went down to the basement of my family house where my family kept books, anthologies and things and there… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
It does demand a certain space in order to read it and I think that space is somewhat threatened by the lack of attention… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
...I put down these memorandums of my affections in honor of tenderness, in honor of all of those who have been conscripted into the… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
You're shadowed by your own dream, especially as you get older, of trying to create something that will last in poetry. And so, you're… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
The attention deficit disorder of the culture is very distressing in America now and I think it puts a lot of things at risk,… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
Now, as I've gotten older I've been able to write more quickly. Sometimes I get in the space of something and I can do… — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
Poetry takes courage because you have to face things and you try to articulate how you feel. — Edward Hirsch Copy Share
