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The October Palace
"An exquisite accomplishment. These serene and painterly meditations quietly blossom into luminous and sensual lyric reckonings." — David St. John "A radiant and passionate collection." — New York Times Book Review Grounded in a series of mediations upon the life of the feeling heart in the world, Jane Hirshfield's long-awaited third collection of poetry explores the ways that radiance dwells most truly in the ordinary, the difficult, and the plain.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1994
2 people are currently reading
231 people want to read
About the author
Jane Hirshfield
71 books619 followersJane Hirshfield is the author of nine collections of poetry, including the forthcoming Ledger (Knopf, March 2020), The Beauty (Knopf, 2015), longlisted for the National Book Award, Come Thief (Knopf, August 23, 2011), After (HarperCollins, 2006), which was named a “Best Book of 2006” by The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, and England’s Financial Times and shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Award; and Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award); as well as two now-classic books of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. She has also edited and co-translated three books collecting the work of women poets from the distant past, and one e-book on Basho and the development of haiku, The Heart of Haiku. Hirshfield’s other honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, the California Book Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the 40th Annual Distinguished Achievement Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, an honor previously received by Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, and William Carlos Williams. Her work has been featured in ten editions of The Best American Poems and appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement/TLS, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, The New York Review of Books, Orion, McSweeney’s, and elsewhere. Hirshfield’s poems have also been featured many times on Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac as well as two Bill Moyers’ PBS television specials. She has presented her poems and taught at festivals and universities throughout the U.S., in China, Japan, the Middle East, the U.K., Poland, and Ireland. In 2019, she was elected into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Hirshfield's appearance schedule can be found at:
Hirshfield's appearance schedule can be found at:
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
September 7, 2015
I first read this collection about 15 years ago. I loved it more this time through.
Beautiful poems – some are strongly narrative, the sort I usually prefer, but I consider most of Hirshfield’s poems to be word photographs, a meditation in the moment rather than storytelling. The two horse poems, “The Love of Aged Horses” and “For a Gelding,” ripped my heart out.
There’s a rich wholeness to the poet’s worldview and to her writing that makes it hard for me to pluck out favorite quotes as I do with most poetry. One might as well cut up the Mona Lisa and say, “Here’s her smile,” while desecrating the masterpiece. Perhaps she is like the woodthrush she describes in “The Stone of Heaven”: “Any woodthrush shows it – he sings,/not to fill the world, but because he is filled.”
Beautiful poems – some are strongly narrative, the sort I usually prefer, but I consider most of Hirshfield’s poems to be word photographs, a meditation in the moment rather than storytelling. The two horse poems, “The Love of Aged Horses” and “For a Gelding,” ripped my heart out.
There’s a rich wholeness to the poet’s worldview and to her writing that makes it hard for me to pluck out favorite quotes as I do with most poetry. One might as well cut up the Mona Lisa and say, “Here’s her smile,” while desecrating the masterpiece. Perhaps she is like the woodthrush she describes in “The Stone of Heaven”: “Any woodthrush shows it – he sings,/not to fill the world, but because he is filled.”
March 26, 2024
I finished The October Palace in one afternoon. I sat with the poems a while, let them soak in. I will revisit some of them at a later date. My overall impression is that the poems are all remarkable, a study in perfection of one's craft. I bought this book, published in 1994, because I came across Hirshfield's poem, "The Love of Aged Horses" and I wanted to read the poem within the context of a collection of poems. The 89-pp book did not disappoint, except for the fact that I thought I was buying a brand new book and it wasn't brand new; the cover was pretty scuffed - no matter, all the pages were intact.
There were a few gems that surprised me, leapt out at me and made my heart race. Before I go into a specific poem, I want to point out Hirshfield's linebreaks: Her breaks are so well placed that her lines read like braille, or a staff on a music sheet and feel almost "instructional" - as if to say, "reader, this is how to feel this poem,"; and, more importantly the linebreaks provide the layout of the space in which to navigate the poem's meaning, as if one were a blind person following the necessary outlines: hard corners, steps, textures of curtains, shapes of furniture situated in a room. I could almost swear that some of her poems were set to a metronome or a heartbeat. Take for example the following:
Notice how short the lines are: quick, to the point. Add in the punctuation, there's this path to the end, purposeful and direct, a pushing through with no room for distraction. Breath, breath, and breath, then pause: "at the not-quite-itself / not-quite-another, / moving of shadows and grass. The form of the lion disappears into shadows and grass, like a breeze, that is seen only through its parting.
The beauty of "The Kingdom," is the seamless way the heart turns into a lion. That poem alone is worth the price of admission; it's a masterpiece: Here, the heart / lion surveys the body as housing that has been elevated to a kingdom with pride. The body is more than just a home for the heart; it is everything within (and without). Only after the heart enters hunger (need, want), sorrow (loss, regret) does it stand to lose everything. And ends with, "to know / if nothing else / what it once owned." The word that sticks out is, "wary." As if there were some amount of danger that the heart is willing to or compelled to risk all. Only in losing everything, can the heart appreciate what it once had. Or in the case of the lion, his kingdom. That's how I interpret that compulsion to enter into the heart's bargain with itself. Notice the body and mind, separate from the heart and yet, not quite the "other" and not quite aware of itself. What a strange paradox. Just like losing all is compulsory to gaining knowledge. In other words, you can't know what you've had until you've lost it.
Then the poem that compelled me to buy this book:
"The Love of Aged Horses":
Because I know tomorrow
his faithful gelding heart will be broken
when the spotted mare is trailered and driven away,
I come today to take him for a gallop on Diaz Ridge.
Returning, he will whinny for his love.
Ancient, spavined,
her white parts red with hill-dust,
her red parts whitened with the same, she never answers.
But today, when I turn him loose at the hill-gate
with the taste of chewed oat on his tongue
and the saddle-sweat rinsed off with water,
I know he will canter, however tired,
whinnying wildly up the ridge's near side,
and I know he will find her.
He will be filled with the sureness of horses
whose bellies are grain-filled,
whose long-ribbed loneliness
can be scratched into no-longer-lonely.
His long teeth on her withers,
her rough-coated spots will grow damp and wild.
Her long teeth on his withers,
his oiled-teakwood smoothness will grow damp and wild.
Their shadows' chiasmus will fleck and fill with flies,
the eight marks of their fortune stamp and then cancel the earth.
From ear-flick to tail-switch, they stand in one body.
No luck is as boundless as theirs.
In the endnotes, Hirshfield explains, " 'Chiasmus' is a term from rhetoric, referring to a literary device in which terms are arranged in a crisscrossing pattern." I saw that imagery clearly in the poem, but the "No luck is as boundless as theirs," wasn't as clear to me. I'm not for sure luck is boundless when we're told that the fate of the gelding's love, the spotted mare, is to be "trailered and driven away." Fate and luck aren't natural allies in the world of philosophy or in writing as tight as this. I wonder if luck is a deliberate replacement for the word, "love" - after all, "Love" is in the title. In any case, that wasn't my favorite ending. I think I would have just left out that line, period. It's pushing the, "that's-a-wrap" boundary of good form.
On page 64, there is another poem, "For the Gelding," which feels more tenuous, a little less leading by the hand, thereby more open to interpretation. I'm assuming, as a reader, that this poem is dedicated to the same gelding. I'll not include the poem here in this review. I suggest reading it to compare to the other poem or to simply enjoy it on its own.
On that note, I have revised my original review because it was starting to sound pretentious, lofty, or something that did not sit well with me. I'll just end on this note: Jane Hirshfield is a master in stillness, of being, observer. You have to get into 'that' quiet space in order to truly appreciate the little nuances, a slight turn of phrase, the clarity of her seeing. I admire her work. It's guaranteed I will be reading more books of hers.
There were a few gems that surprised me, leapt out at me and made my heart race. Before I go into a specific poem, I want to point out Hirshfield's linebreaks: Her breaks are so well placed that her lines read like braille, or a staff on a music sheet and feel almost "instructional" - as if to say, "reader, this is how to feel this poem,"; and, more importantly the linebreaks provide the layout of the space in which to navigate the poem's meaning, as if one were a blind person following the necessary outlines: hard corners, steps, textures of curtains, shapes of furniture situated in a room. I could almost swear that some of her poems were set to a metronome or a heartbeat. Take for example the following:
"The Kingdom"
At times
the heart
stands back
and looks at the body,
looks at the mind,
as a lion
quietly looks
at the not-quite-itself,
not-quite-another,
moving of shadows and grass.
Wary, but with interest,
considers its kingdom.
Then seeing
all that will be,
heart once again enters—
enters hunger, enters sorrow,
enters finally losing it all.
To know, if nothing else,
what it once owned.
Notice how short the lines are: quick, to the point. Add in the punctuation, there's this path to the end, purposeful and direct, a pushing through with no room for distraction. Breath, breath, and breath, then pause: "at the not-quite-itself / not-quite-another, / moving of shadows and grass. The form of the lion disappears into shadows and grass, like a breeze, that is seen only through its parting.
The beauty of "The Kingdom," is the seamless way the heart turns into a lion. That poem alone is worth the price of admission; it's a masterpiece: Here, the heart / lion surveys the body as housing that has been elevated to a kingdom with pride. The body is more than just a home for the heart; it is everything within (and without). Only after the heart enters hunger (need, want), sorrow (loss, regret) does it stand to lose everything. And ends with, "to know / if nothing else / what it once owned." The word that sticks out is, "wary." As if there were some amount of danger that the heart is willing to or compelled to risk all. Only in losing everything, can the heart appreciate what it once had. Or in the case of the lion, his kingdom. That's how I interpret that compulsion to enter into the heart's bargain with itself. Notice the body and mind, separate from the heart and yet, not quite the "other" and not quite aware of itself. What a strange paradox. Just like losing all is compulsory to gaining knowledge. In other words, you can't know what you've had until you've lost it.
Then the poem that compelled me to buy this book:
"The Love of Aged Horses":
Because I know tomorrow
his faithful gelding heart will be broken
when the spotted mare is trailered and driven away,
I come today to take him for a gallop on Diaz Ridge.
Returning, he will whinny for his love.
Ancient, spavined,
her white parts red with hill-dust,
her red parts whitened with the same, she never answers.
But today, when I turn him loose at the hill-gate
with the taste of chewed oat on his tongue
and the saddle-sweat rinsed off with water,
I know he will canter, however tired,
whinnying wildly up the ridge's near side,
and I know he will find her.
He will be filled with the sureness of horses
whose bellies are grain-filled,
whose long-ribbed loneliness
can be scratched into no-longer-lonely.
His long teeth on her withers,
her rough-coated spots will grow damp and wild.
Her long teeth on his withers,
his oiled-teakwood smoothness will grow damp and wild.
Their shadows' chiasmus will fleck and fill with flies,
the eight marks of their fortune stamp and then cancel the earth.
From ear-flick to tail-switch, they stand in one body.
No luck is as boundless as theirs.
In the endnotes, Hirshfield explains, " 'Chiasmus' is a term from rhetoric, referring to a literary device in which terms are arranged in a crisscrossing pattern." I saw that imagery clearly in the poem, but the "No luck is as boundless as theirs," wasn't as clear to me. I'm not for sure luck is boundless when we're told that the fate of the gelding's love, the spotted mare, is to be "trailered and driven away." Fate and luck aren't natural allies in the world of philosophy or in writing as tight as this. I wonder if luck is a deliberate replacement for the word, "love" - after all, "Love" is in the title. In any case, that wasn't my favorite ending. I think I would have just left out that line, period. It's pushing the, "that's-a-wrap" boundary of good form.
On page 64, there is another poem, "For the Gelding," which feels more tenuous, a little less leading by the hand, thereby more open to interpretation. I'm assuming, as a reader, that this poem is dedicated to the same gelding. I'll not include the poem here in this review. I suggest reading it to compare to the other poem or to simply enjoy it on its own.
On that note, I have revised my original review because it was starting to sound pretentious, lofty, or something that did not sit well with me. I'll just end on this note: Jane Hirshfield is a master in stillness, of being, observer. You have to get into 'that' quiet space in order to truly appreciate the little nuances, a slight turn of phrase, the clarity of her seeing. I admire her work. It's guaranteed I will be reading more books of hers.
March 3, 2025
Dense and heady, The October Palace is an appropriate title if you like some heft in your winter reading. This book somehow reminds me of memory, but more than just passing soliloquies or records of thought. In some way that I can’t articulate this evening, it reminds me of the formation of archetypes before those archetypes were fully formed, and yet to be named.
There’s a line from Hirshield’s poem, Shadow, that opens up the mood of the whole:
“Memory” she’d one written, “is like a shadow of a building, longest just when it turns to disappear…”
This sentiment, for me, strikes a chord tied to the germinant music locked in the geometry of our spirits. And in The October Palace Ms. Hirchfield seems to explore that arc, and its gradient of smoke, with elegiac meter and without resolution—because resolution is not always possible or necessary. Even so, she toils like a flower unfolding and brings a sound that is deeply beautiful in its dissonance. In the spaces she creates there is a reminder to be thoughtful towards something transforming itself, and by you witnessing that transformation, you are also being transformed. At the beginning of her poem, The Wedding, she quotes a chemistry book from 1789, saying, “Nothing is lost, nothing created: everything is transformed. ” I like that, and I tend to agree.
A snippet from The Wedding:
Imagine nothing created, what it might look like,
try to envision such peace.
Now see the dark-shelled flowers of thought unmade,
the petals of Little Boy unassembled,
the plague–poxed donkeys unflung over city walls,
the dead undead, the survivors unlonely. Or think of a world
in which nothing is lost, it’s heaped paintings,
the studded statues keeping their jewels.
Now see this very world, where all is transformed,
quick as a child who cries and then laughs in her crying—
now, ingot, now blossoming ash,
now table, now suckling lamb on the table.
How each thing meets the other as itself,
the luminous, changing mirror of itself—mercuric oxide tipped from flask to flask,
first two, then one, wedded for life in that vow.
There’s a line from Hirshield’s poem, Shadow, that opens up the mood of the whole:
“Memory” she’d one written, “is like a shadow of a building, longest just when it turns to disappear…”
This sentiment, for me, strikes a chord tied to the germinant music locked in the geometry of our spirits. And in The October Palace Ms. Hirchfield seems to explore that arc, and its gradient of smoke, with elegiac meter and without resolution—because resolution is not always possible or necessary. Even so, she toils like a flower unfolding and brings a sound that is deeply beautiful in its dissonance. In the spaces she creates there is a reminder to be thoughtful towards something transforming itself, and by you witnessing that transformation, you are also being transformed. At the beginning of her poem, The Wedding, she quotes a chemistry book from 1789, saying, “Nothing is lost, nothing created: everything is transformed. ” I like that, and I tend to agree.
A snippet from The Wedding:
Imagine nothing created, what it might look like,
try to envision such peace.
Now see the dark-shelled flowers of thought unmade,
the petals of Little Boy unassembled,
the plague–poxed donkeys unflung over city walls,
the dead undead, the survivors unlonely. Or think of a world
in which nothing is lost, it’s heaped paintings,
the studded statues keeping their jewels.
Now see this very world, where all is transformed,
quick as a child who cries and then laughs in her crying—
now, ingot, now blossoming ash,
now table, now suckling lamb on the table.
How each thing meets the other as itself,
the luminous, changing mirror of itself—mercuric oxide tipped from flask to flask,
first two, then one, wedded for life in that vow.
March 23, 2022
The Weighing
The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.
As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
The heart's reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.
As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
May 15, 2020
oh my goodness... all of my goodness my entire goodness all goodnesses bestowed upon this wondrous book
November 25, 2024
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.
October 3, 2022
Jane Hirshfield uses strong imagery in many poems. Sure enough it’s not the only quality about her poetry, yet when image and theme is interwoven imagery becomes central, which is oftentimes the case. In consequence, whether a piece of hers strikes a nerve depends on whether or not a given image works with the reader. And so they either hit or miss. Yet at times it’s a hit on a second try.
*
The Kingdom (page 3) is a perfect example of Hirshfield using pictures. Here it’s one of a lion gazing upon his land for the abstraction (or yet another image) of a heart considering a formerly youthful mind and body.
*
In Red Poppies (page 8) too many pictures are used to no effect. — Or maybe that’s just me.
*
Each Step (page 9) starts off with five lines and some remarkable phrasing: ‘Nowhere on this earth/ is it not a place where the lovers / turn lightly in sleep in each other’s arms, / the blue pastures of dusk flowing gladly/ into dawn.’
*
Metaphors for Plath’s life, end, and legacy sound as follows: ‘The night’s stampede of winds/ and eerie light is over./ The roads are covered with needles, limbs,/torn after glitter// of hurricane, earthquake, war.’ — From a piece titled Storm: Yaddo, 1989 (page 25). Quite powerful.
*
The Sting (page 35) might be my personal favourite yet. The poem’s theme is hidden dimensions, in other words other dimension beyond the four we know so well. Not only does The Sting combine allusions to the String Theory, but also structures the ideas in it in a way that makes you experience them. First, the reader is reminded that only with memory the fourth dimension is perceivable; then a sequence of four steps appears in the wrong order and our memory has to rearrange to imagine time coordinating these steps. Genius!
*
Uncountable details deserve to be mentioned: Percolation (page 51) plays with the beauty of biological terms; At The Roosevelt Baths is incredibly wholesome, uniquely even; Ripeness (page 78) touches so deep that it’s well worth learning by heart.
Other pieces left me cold. I found Even The Vanishing Housed (page 67) rather unintelligible. The Gods Are Not Large (page 81) seemed likewise. Again, overloaded imagery was to be read in A Sweetening All Around Me As It Falls (page 71). Perhaps these poems will convince me only after several attempts.
*
I still don’t really know who Jane Hirshfield is. I picked the book because of its title and because I’d thought it was published in 2021, although it was only printed again in ’21 and published in 1994. Soon three decades old The October Palace stands the test of time for all I know.
Picturesque language and gripping ideas. An immensely rich collection.
*
The Kingdom (page 3) is a perfect example of Hirshfield using pictures. Here it’s one of a lion gazing upon his land for the abstraction (or yet another image) of a heart considering a formerly youthful mind and body.
*
In Red Poppies (page 8) too many pictures are used to no effect. — Or maybe that’s just me.
*
Each Step (page 9) starts off with five lines and some remarkable phrasing: ‘Nowhere on this earth/ is it not a place where the lovers / turn lightly in sleep in each other’s arms, / the blue pastures of dusk flowing gladly/ into dawn.’
*
Metaphors for Plath’s life, end, and legacy sound as follows: ‘The night’s stampede of winds/ and eerie light is over./ The roads are covered with needles, limbs,/torn after glitter// of hurricane, earthquake, war.’ — From a piece titled Storm: Yaddo, 1989 (page 25). Quite powerful.
*
The Sting (page 35) might be my personal favourite yet. The poem’s theme is hidden dimensions, in other words other dimension beyond the four we know so well. Not only does The Sting combine allusions to the String Theory, but also structures the ideas in it in a way that makes you experience them. First, the reader is reminded that only with memory the fourth dimension is perceivable; then a sequence of four steps appears in the wrong order and our memory has to rearrange to imagine time coordinating these steps. Genius!
*
Uncountable details deserve to be mentioned: Percolation (page 51) plays with the beauty of biological terms; At The Roosevelt Baths is incredibly wholesome, uniquely even; Ripeness (page 78) touches so deep that it’s well worth learning by heart.
Other pieces left me cold. I found Even The Vanishing Housed (page 67) rather unintelligible. The Gods Are Not Large (page 81) seemed likewise. Again, overloaded imagery was to be read in A Sweetening All Around Me As It Falls (page 71). Perhaps these poems will convince me only after several attempts.
*
I still don’t really know who Jane Hirshfield is. I picked the book because of its title and because I’d thought it was published in 2021, although it was only printed again in ’21 and published in 1994. Soon three decades old The October Palace stands the test of time for all I know.
Picturesque language and gripping ideas. An immensely rich collection.
April 2, 2025
This book has 3 sections and I found myself marking poems almost exclusively in the section with a distinctly earthy bent, with poems rooted in the natural world and the physical body. That undoubtedly reflects my own bent.
Though there is a range of free verse in this volume, short and long in overall length, short lines and long lines, Hirschfield has a steadiness of voice and perspective that creates a consistency throughout the book. There is nothing not to like in the poetry of this book overall but it was only the lure of the physical world that led me to treasure certain poems.
Those living in California will feel especially at home in the physical details of these poems. I lived there for a few years and that time was invoked, especially with the frequent mention of goldenness.
I won't hesitate to buy another Hirschfield if one happens to come my way, especially one focusing on her animal/farm poems (I hadn't previously known she was a horse person). The poems in this volume often have an elegiac tone that is firmly rooted in love that is also palpable.
As a general sample of her work, I offer the end of "1973":
All sold now, gone, his farm, the one we lived at,
the groundfall cider, the cars.
Us too, of course, long shaken free, though
I still cook bluefish the way you taught me, and carrots.
I thought I would love you forever--and, a little, I may,
in the way I still move toward a crate, knees bent,
or reach for a man: as one might stretch
for the three or four fruit that lie in the sun at the top
of the tree; too ripe for any moment but this,
they open their skin at first touch, yielding sweetness,
sweetness and heat, and in me, each time since,
the answering yes.
Though there is a range of free verse in this volume, short and long in overall length, short lines and long lines, Hirschfield has a steadiness of voice and perspective that creates a consistency throughout the book. There is nothing not to like in the poetry of this book overall but it was only the lure of the physical world that led me to treasure certain poems.
Those living in California will feel especially at home in the physical details of these poems. I lived there for a few years and that time was invoked, especially with the frequent mention of goldenness.
I won't hesitate to buy another Hirschfield if one happens to come my way, especially one focusing on her animal/farm poems (I hadn't previously known she was a horse person). The poems in this volume often have an elegiac tone that is firmly rooted in love that is also palpable.
As a general sample of her work, I offer the end of "1973":
All sold now, gone, his farm, the one we lived at,
the groundfall cider, the cars.
Us too, of course, long shaken free, though
I still cook bluefish the way you taught me, and carrots.
I thought I would love you forever--and, a little, I may,
in the way I still move toward a crate, knees bent,
or reach for a man: as one might stretch
for the three or four fruit that lie in the sun at the top
of the tree; too ripe for any moment but this,
they open their skin at first touch, yielding sweetness,
sweetness and heat, and in me, each time since,
the answering yes.
February 24, 2024
“Grounded in a series of meditations upon the life of the feeling heart in the world—a heart envisioned as an almost independent being, whose own needs and desires require of us integration, acceptance, and finally praise—[this collection] is contemplative and sensuous, intellectual and emotional, philosophical and musical, and above all, serious in its encounter with precisely experienced and deeply questioned life.” —from the dust jacket notes
Favorite Poems:
“The Shadow”
“For the Autumn Dead: Election Day, 1984”
“Storm: Yaddo, 1989”
“In the Year Eight Hundred”
“A Recurring Possibility”
“The Hawk Cry”
“The Sting”
“1973”
“Inspiration”
“The Love of Aged Horses”
“For a Wedding on Mount Tamalpais”
“The Mesmer”
“For a Gelding”
“The Task”
“In Yellow Grass”
“Even the Vanishing Housed”
“The Thief”
“Leaving the October Place”
“Just Below the Surface”
“Ripeness”
“The Weighing”
“The Gods Are Not Large”
Favorite Poems:
“The Shadow”
“For the Autumn Dead: Election Day, 1984”
“Storm: Yaddo, 1989”
“In the Year Eight Hundred”
“A Recurring Possibility”
“The Hawk Cry”
“The Sting”
“1973”
“Inspiration”
“The Love of Aged Horses”
“For a Wedding on Mount Tamalpais”
“The Mesmer”
“For a Gelding”
“The Task”
“In Yellow Grass”
“Even the Vanishing Housed”
“The Thief”
“Leaving the October Place”
“Just Below the Surface”
“Ripeness”
“The Weighing”
“The Gods Are Not Large”
March 28, 2021
The Task
by Jane Hirshfield
It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily — open eyes, braid hair —
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.
And yes, it is a simple enough task
we’ve taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,
from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,
and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse’s patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked
sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.
by Jane Hirshfield
It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily — open eyes, braid hair —
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.
And yes, it is a simple enough task
we’ve taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,
from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,
and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse’s patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked
sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.
March 1, 2019
So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
- from The Weighing
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.
- from The Weighing
May 19, 2019
I enjoy her writing.
August 21, 2025
Her mind dwells on the spiritual, but her nose is on the ground inhaling earth's bouquet. In praise of rural living, and life with her horses.
November 26, 2024
“Grounded in a series of mediations upon the life of the feeling heart in the world, Jane Hirshfield's long-awaited third collection of poetry explores the ways that radiance dwells most truly in the ordinary, the difficult, and the plain.”
From synopsis
A beautiful collection of Jane Hirshfield’s earlier poetry. Broken into three parts; part one is What the Heart Wants, part two; The Answering Yes, and part three; The October Palace. I found the third part resonated most strongly with me and it is within that my favourites are included; Ripeness, The Weighing, and Meeting The Light Completely.
From synopsis
A beautiful collection of Jane Hirshfield’s earlier poetry. Broken into three parts; part one is What the Heart Wants, part two; The Answering Yes, and part three; The October Palace. I found the third part resonated most strongly with me and it is within that my favourites are included; Ripeness, The Weighing, and Meeting The Light Completely.
September 23, 2008
Not many of the poems really reached me, but the few that did really did. Most of her poems reflected nature and the feeling of living on a farm in a poet's eyes. Each poem was gentle, either in a subtle sadness or a quiet hope.
Some of them, though, were too quiet and peaceful for me. Plus the repetition of lions, flowers, birds, and foxes was a small annoyance (I like to see more variety in imagery).
However, some of her poems reminded me of Rumi's and that delighted me (especially "Meeting the Light Completely" had a strong taste of Rumi).
The only other thing is that I really don't like notes at the end of the book, I prefer them in the beginning so I can better appreciate the poem. But her notes were very interesting and made me appreciate how she can be inspired by so many different subjects and facts she finds along the way.
My favourites include: "Red Poppies", "Narcissus: Tel Aviv, Bagdad, San Francisco", "A Recurring Possibilty", "What Falls", "Percolation", "Leaving the October Palace", "Meeting the Light Completely", and "An Earthly Beauty".
The only quote that I wrote down (many of the poems were too interwoven to take out of context) was:
"while the one spring opened around it in so many poppies/they could not be named, revealing themselves/in each petal's sexual brightness,/wanting so much to be found, the gold pollen/spun half to thick honey,/half into seeds dark as lead." - Red Poppies
Some of them, though, were too quiet and peaceful for me. Plus the repetition of lions, flowers, birds, and foxes was a small annoyance (I like to see more variety in imagery).
However, some of her poems reminded me of Rumi's and that delighted me (especially "Meeting the Light Completely" had a strong taste of Rumi).
The only other thing is that I really don't like notes at the end of the book, I prefer them in the beginning so I can better appreciate the poem. But her notes were very interesting and made me appreciate how she can be inspired by so many different subjects and facts she finds along the way.
My favourites include: "Red Poppies", "Narcissus: Tel Aviv, Bagdad, San Francisco", "A Recurring Possibilty", "What Falls", "Percolation", "Leaving the October Palace", "Meeting the Light Completely", and "An Earthly Beauty".
The only quote that I wrote down (many of the poems were too interwoven to take out of context) was:
"while the one spring opened around it in so many poppies/they could not be named, revealing themselves/in each petal's sexual brightness,/wanting so much to be found, the gold pollen/spun half to thick honey,/half into seeds dark as lead." - Red Poppies
April 19, 2023
Hirshfield's poems are so dense and can be so difficult, but reading this book over many days I found that much of the difficulty for me was in my own self rather than the text -- one day a poem would seem almost impenetrable in its images, and then I would read it again when more relaxed and open and it would unfold perfectly for me. I need to own this one, I think, so I may take my time over every poem and see them properly.
March 20, 2011
Lovely.
November 5, 2012
Autumn
Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkness--
as if a thousand penitents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.
Again the wind
flakes gold-leaf from the trees
and the painting darkness--
as if a thousand penitents
kissed an icon
till it thinned
back to bare wood,
without diminishment.
April 26, 2017
I love Hirshfield's work, but I had not read her early collections. This one, which garnered quite a bit of praise when it came out, doesn't hold up well for me--maybe because I cannot help but compare them with her later poems, which are splendid.
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