Reviews for After: Poems

The average rating for After: Poems based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-06-21 00:00:00 Robert Martin My first sustained meeting with Jane Hirschfield, and I've a feeling we'll sit for coffee again, given her knack for subtle metaphor and fascination with, oh, dogs and mortality and personification. I felt it was stronger BEFORE than After, but maybe it was me. The beginning of the book I read at 4 a.m., when any book is stronger; the latter at night, when poetic energy begins to drain. A series of poems here have the word "Assay" in the title. I had to look it up. It means, as a noun, an analysis, and can function similarly as a verb demonstrating the act of analysis. Poetry-oh-so-wise, then, these works are simply contemplations on a subject. For example, we have "Hope: An Assay," "Sky: An Assay," "Articulation: An Assay," "Translucence: An Assay," "Tears: An Assay," and "Poe: An Assay." As you can see, the subject matter is eclectic, sometimes a concrete object (e.g. "Termites: An Assay"), sometimes an abstraction (e.g. "Possibility: An Assay"), and sometimes a word (e.g. "'And': An Assay"). Make no mistake, though only a third of the titles assayed their way down the book's aisle, every poem here is an assay. One vowel different and Montaigne would have been proud. An example of Jane's style: Pocket of Fog In the yard next door, a pocket of fog like a small herd of bison swallows azaleas, koi pond, the red-and-gold koi. To be undivided must mean not knowing you are. The fog grazes here, then there, all morning browsing the shallows, leaving no footprint between my fate and the mountain's. The poems here bend domestic and the surrounding world of nature. JH is not political or out to solve the problems of the world. Instead, she tries to capture and bottle small samples of it. As I tour poets I should know, some I check off and move on (too many poets, too little time), and some I say, "We'll definitely meet again" to. Jane Hirshfield rates the latter.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-07-25 00:00:00 William Brice Few poetry titles are as companionable as this one. When I need to write, to journal, to have an important talk with someone or to relax on my own, it's always good to have Hirshfield around. These are poems as spare in their style as they are capacious in meaning and compassion. A theme Hirshfield particularly does well - and which buttresses her mindful, meditative aura - is that all of us are doing the best we can, yet can always take a step back, look at ourselves, and do better. If it happens, it happens. It's better to listen to your crazy friend than try to change him/her, for example. If they change, it's from their own words leading to their own actions, an empowering trajectory. And that crazy person might be you. Meanwhile, impermanence and suffering are always with us. From the short poem "The Dead Do Not Want Us Dead": The dead do not want us dead; such petty errors are left for the living. Nor do they want our mourning. No gift to them - not rage, not weeping. Return one of them, any one of them, to the earth, and look: such foolish skipping, such telling of bad jokes, such feasting! Even a cucumber, even a single anise seed: feasting. The ending of the poem speaks volumes about Hirshfield's style - the vast potential of a cucumber to do big and small things, to symbolize so much in our minds. What slightly detracts from Hirshfield's work is its sameness. There isn't quite a large enough venue of details or variety of styles, so the overall quality of the work can feel a little too didactic. And it doesn't help that she uses the same metaphors of many other poets - the stream, the mountain, the horse. Too many metaphors takes away the vivacity that is day-to-day living. I will keep Hirshfield on my NOOK and read it whenever I don't have a good acquaintance around. These simple lines draw you in, connect all of us through our timeless concerns and reveal something different every reading.