{"id":14609,"date":"2021-04-16T22:16:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T22:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/?post_type=product&p=14609"},"modified":"2023-02-16T15:54:35","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T15:54:35","slug":"stranger-by-night-poems-by-edward-hirsch","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/catalog\/stranger-by-night-poems-by-edward-hirsch\/","title":{"rendered":"Stranger By Night – Poems by Edward Hirsch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In his seventieth year, the award-winning poet looks back on what was and accepts what is, in a deeply moving and beautiful sequence about what sustains him.<\/b><\/p>\n

Beginning with \u201cMy Friends Don\u2019t Get Buried,\u201d the lament of a delinquent mourner as his friends have begun to die, and ending with the plaintive note to self \u201cdon\u2019t write elegies\/anymore,\u201d Edward Hirsch takes us backward through the decades in these memory poems of startling immediacy. He recalls the black dress a lover wore when he couldn\u2019t yet know the tragedy of her burning spirit; the radiance of an autumn day in Detroit when his students smoked outside, passionately discussing Shelley; the day he got off late from a railyard shift and missed an antiwar demonstration. There are direct and indirect elegies to lost contemporaries like Mark Strand, William Meredith, and, most especially, his longtime compatriot Philip Levine, whom he honors in several poems about daily work in the late mid-century Midwest. As the poet ages and begins to lose his peripheral vision, the world is \u201cstranger by night,\u201d but these elegant, heart-stirring poems shed light on a lifetime that inevitably contains both sorrow and joy. \u2013 <\/span>Penguin Random House<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

With this tender and unflinching 10th collection, Hirsch (Gabriel) balances heartfelt elegy with a celebration of the everyday. In these 48 poems of sensory remembrance, any door might open on the past: \u201cYesterday I climbed the stairs\/ and took the \u2018L\u2019\/ to 1965 \/where I was stuck\/ in the heart\/ of downtown Chicago.\u201d While offering tributes to Mark Strand, William Meredith, and Phillip Levine, Hirsch\u2019s speakers are ready to \u201clet someone else\/ stumble past the mausoleum\/ and grieve\/ under the calm shade.\u201d Hirsch is interested in capturing ephemeral flashes of human vitality with a lyricism that rises from unadorned eyewitness. Yet his reportage is often framed in ironic negation: \u201cDon\u2019t hitchhike\/ the Mediterranean coast\/ of Algeria\/ in the summer of 1971\/ with only a worn copy\/ of The Plague to guide you.\u201d In another poem, he remembers a chance encounter with a skyscraper window washer (\u201cI felt oddly gleeful\/ when I saw him later\/ coming off the job safely\/ in street clothes, walking on ground\u201d). While later poems address Hirsch\u2019s loss of eyesight, giving resonance to the collection\u2019s title, readers will be grateful the poet\u2019s inner eye remains as observant and compassionate as ever. (Feb.) \u2014 <\/span>Publishers Weekly<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cBring[s] new life to the elegy . . . Hirsch compresses molten emotions into spare, columnar lyrics ignited by exhilarating enjambments and cadences supple and musical . . . In singing, earthy, and soulful poems, Hirsch muses over age and the loss of friends, including fellow poets Philip Levine and Mark Strand . . . The poet also reaches back to his first hard-labor jobs, his teaching stints in coal country, and pilgrimages in Poland and Russia . . . Consummate, passionate, generous, and resplendent, Hirsch\u2019s poems vanquish the static of our lives and guide us back to a place of contemplation and gratitude.\u201d <\/span>\u2014 Donna Seaman, <\/b>Booklist<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Hardback. 80 pp. 6\u00d79 in. Alfred Knopf Publishing.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Edward<\/div>\n
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Edward Hirsch is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. A MacArthur fellow, he has published ten books of poems and six books of prose. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for literature. He serves as president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and lives in Brooklyn.<\/span><\/p>\n

NOTE ABOUT SIGNED BOOKS:<\/span><\/p>\n

Signed books will be shipped on or before the April 24th, Bookstore Day Event with six poets. We will fill each order until they run out.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his seventieth year, the award-winning poet looks back on what was and accepts what is, in a deeply moving and beautiful sequence about what sustains him. Beginning with \u201cMy Friends Don\u2019t Get Buried,\u201d the lament of a delinquent mourner as his friends have begun to die, and ending with the plaintive note to self […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14610,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[108],"product_tag":[383,376,378],"class_list":["post-14609","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-poetry","product_tag-national-poetry-month","product_tag-poetry","product_tag-signed-poetry","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-simple"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/14609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=14609"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=14609"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebookbeat.com\/bookshop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=14609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}