Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World

With TEN WINDOWS Jane Hirshfield, one of this planet’s premier poets, has left her indelible mark on literature-- even if she never produces another book of prize-winning poems. Let me support that claim with a little back-story. I was an English literature major at Harvard, was married to a best-selling novelist for forty-five volatile years, have published three editions of a legal treatise, and three volumes of prose-poetry.That’s why I’m in awe of Jane’s ability to pack such powerful, original, and creative analysis into such lucid prose. No high-school English teacher should start another term without digesting TEN WINDOWS. On the other hand, I doubt most college English professors would dare mention the book, lest students force them to re-cast their own lectures to accommodate Hirshfield’s exhilarating compendium of insights.The depth of Hirshfield’s penetrating gaze isn’t confined to poetry, however. Sparkling beneath the surface of her unique literary analyses rest gems of profound wisdom about life itself. Indeed, I was so often dazzled that I could only absorb a few pages per day from her treasure trove. Let me cluster some samples appearing between pages 250 and 251:“The abiding necessity of surprise [in poetry] is one reason that factual recitation alone, though highly effective as an element, rarely leads to the transformation we seek and feel in good poems. The difference between ‘fact’ and ‘truth,’ the physicist Niels Bohr once said, is that a fact must be either true or false, while two opposing truths can be equally right, resonant, and informing. For determining facts, we turn to science (or, less happily, at times to courtrooms), but the business of writers is not answers; it is finding right questions…. Good poems make clear without making simple…. Pleasure, not purpose, mates one creature or image with another, and art’s seemingly useless pleasures are not idle. They are imagination serving the future in ways beyond will’s reach.”Glittering revelations like those will soon draw me back again to page one, so I can re-read, re-inforce, and re-enjoy her entire volume. Although her ideas have been neatly corralled behind ten “windows,” this beguiling arrangement scarcely contains her legions of strikingly new ways to comprehend poetry— and life.

This is going to be a strange statement: I really enjoyed reading this book; but if I'd known what was in it, I wouldn't have read it.Hirshfield is tremendous poet and her prose is dazzling. I just couldn't help but be swept up in the language of each of these essays. The exception was the chapter on Haiku which went on far too long. So why the paradox? This is going to sound incredibly inelegant especially given how exquisite Hirshfield's writing is: there's not much actually being said here. I felt bad even writing that. I can't agree more with Hirshfield's central belief: that poetry (and art in general) expands who we are and expands the possibilities of the world. It does this through surprise, ambiguity, and withholding. I couldn't agree more. But these are commonly held beliefs among poets and they've also been said recently and with much clearer supporting evidence by other writers like Richard Hugo, Tony Hoagland, Robert Bly, and Stephen Dobyns. Which brings me back to my opening statement. BECAUSE Hirshfield's thesis is TRUE (at least to this reader) and because her writing is so wonderful, she's able to expand and contract these same ideas over and over again without saying anything new. The book is a like a jellyfish puffing and closing its way through a fish tank: it's pretty and you have to stare a while in awe. But it's not really going anywhere. This, of course, is part of Hirshfield's cosmic vision--the book goes INWARD and that certainly IS somewhere. Kind of. But for me, having read so many books about the same thing, though I enjoyed her writing and revisiting the beautiful landscapes, I have no desire to go back

These collected essays by Jane Hirshfield regard the writing and reading of poetry as a contemplative act more than a communicative act. This is the rationale for her prolonged consideration of various motifs such as paradox, surprise, and other matters. There is a wonderful chapter on Basho and haiku poetry that provides an informative account of the poet's life and travels as well as the processes of his poems. Another chapter on Thoreau is tantalizing, though not really about Thoreau, or at least not sufficiently about Thoreau for my interests, but still interesting in its exploration of "the hidden" in poetry. A chapter on what is "American" about American poetry left me a bit dazed by the end, not as engaging as Hirshfield is capable of being, even though the topic interests me. Overall, a good book (and the second whole book that I read on my new Kindle Paperwhite), though I still prefer her earlier book "Nine Gates."

This is a wonderful, complex, but conversational book about poetry and what it means to human culture. The selections are uniformly terrific, and many were unknown to me. I would have liked some representativeness, though. I liked her inclusion of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, but it was small and not reflective of his great power. Her choice from Pessoa seemed stronger. It would have been great to see something of Robert Penn Warren or James Dickey, given her focus on the American tradition for some of the book. Other Americans from the Fugitive poets or agrarianism tradition would have matched nicely with some of the frontier exuberance of Whitman. And i thought the Basho was a bit much. I would have substituted some Tsvetaeva or Akhmatova or, more contemporaneously, the fabulous Ha Jin. These are minor quibbles of taste or choice, though, and I'm hardly in a position to challenge what she chose. A great, accessible book by a fine poet and critic.

It's quite an inspirational book for a Poet -- making her/him think that what s(he) is doing is just the way it's supposed to be. The chapter on "Uncarryable Remainders: Poetry & Uncertainty" deals well with what even John Keats faced as a POET (as mentioned in this chaper) -- "Negative Capability, that is when a man is capable of being in Uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason." Although the Chapter "Seeing through words" seems to lay too much emphasis on the Haiku, yet it needs to be appreciated that Jane Hirshfield (despite her own preferences) understands that Haiku is an appropriate genre which is best suited to create a mystery with words, a mystery which needs to be unravelled. In a similar vein is the chapter on: "What is American in Modern American Poetry." Other Chapters like, "Poetry, Transformation, and the Column of Tears" OR A Chapter, "Poetry and the constellation of Surprise"; including some other chapters DEAL with this Art Form of Poetry from a Psychological & Emotional angle. BUT IT NEEDS TO BE UNDERSTOOD IT'S NOT FOR THE LAYMAN POET however talented or gifted he might be. It's a book meant for those interested in delving deep into what I said in the very beginning, "THE INSPIRATIONAL ASPECT OF WHAT COMES OUT AS A POEM." It's less of Actual Poetry (verses -- although they're fairly scattered whenever required), but more ABOUT Poetry (especially what happens before the making of verse).

If you are interested in poetry and particularly if you write poetry, this is an important book to own. I am a great user of the library so when I tell you that having borrowed this book, I immediately ordered it so I could have my own copy, you will understand how it impressed me. It is not an easy or quick read but gives so much insight into poetry that it is a book I have turned to several times already to inspire and to deepen my understanding of what I am reading and writing. Many passages use a sort of poetic metaphor to explain important schools of poetry which is enlightening and inspiring. Ms. Hirshfield has a total mastery of her subject. This is an important book to own and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Excellent

Very interesting reading.