Jane Hirshfield's metaphysical poems
return us to precision and to beauty in poetry
at the end of this harrowing century.
There is a precision of imagery and thought based
in the primary colors and in the mineral
and in the vegetable elements.
There is a precision in her devotion to this Earth
and by association to the language of this Earth
and to the conscious figures of that language.
Beginning with the titles of her poems like "Happiness"
or "The Wedding" or "The Water Diamonds,"
we meet solid shapes and enchanting, familiar formations.
We meet the noun straight on without vagaries.
And as for one of the humblest agents
of our language, the sweet adjective,
we meet it here as a sprite with powerful imaginative leaps.
We meet for example the half-dazed planets,
white-scented blossoms, patient lions, and glossy roosters
of a large clear world.
Jane Hirshfield's images and the ideas
saturating them are alive by way of their beauty,
and by beauty, I mean, freshness.
For as we are shown, freshness is divine.
Pay attention, the words say to us.
Listen to worlds within worlds.
These freshly washed words are in Jane Hirshfield's October
Palace, Of Gravity and Angels, and Alaya.
She's also edited Women in Praise of the Sacred
and was editor and co-translator of The Ink Dark Moon.
Her next book, The Lives of the Heart,
will be published by HarperCollins in 1997.
I hope we will get a preview of some of those poems tonight,
poems beautiful and precise because of the real and spirit
worlds commingled.
Lovingly included in the anthology
Jane compiled, the poet Mirabai wrote
what I have taken freely to describe Jane's poetic process.
The wild woman of the forests discovered the sweet plums
by tasting.
Please join me in welcoming our guest, Jane Hirshfield.
[APPLAUSE]