An Interview with Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch is the author of seven poetry collections: For the Sleepwalkers (1981), Wild Gratitude (1986), The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994), On Love (1998), Lay Back the Darkness (2003), and Special Orders (2008). Series editor for The Writer's World (Trinity University), Hirsch has also edited To a Nightingale: Sonnets & Poems from Sappho to Borges (2007) and, with Eavan Boland, The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology (2008). Hirsch has also written works of non-fiction, including the best-selling How to Read a Poem and Fal in Love with Poetry (1999), The Demon and The Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (2002), and Poet's Choice (2006), a collection of essays based on the weekly columns he wrote for the Washington Post Book World.

Erudite and passionate, Edward Hirsch's poetry is rooted in his boyhood in Chicago, Illinois, his Jewish heritage, his empathic sense of the sorrows of America, his abiding sense of belonging to a global community, and his profound connection to the soul and legacy of poetry. The recipient of numerous awards, including the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship, Hirsch is a regular contributor to ...