How To Read A Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry

By Edward Hirsch

A masterful work by a master poet, this brilliant summation of poetry and human nature will speak to all readers who long to place poetry in their lives.

How to Read a Poem is an unprecedented exploration of poetry and feeling. In language at once acute and emotional, National Book Critics Circle award-winning distinguished poet and critic Edward Hirsch describes why poetry matters and how we can open up our imaginations so that its message can make a difference. In a marvelous reading of verse from around the world, including work by Pablo Neruda, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath, among many others, Hirsch discovers the true meaning of their words and ideas and brings their sublime message home into our hearts.

"The answer Hirsch gives to the question of how to read as poem is: Ecstatically."—Boston Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Mar 22, 1999
• ISBN: 9780547543727

Edward Hirsch

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 the National Book Critics Circle Award, 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.

Reviews for How To Read A Poem

[b.masonjudy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Edward Hirsch wrote an excellent book about reading poetry. Beginning my foray into poetry this book was helpful as a guide and also a source of entertainment (Hirsch gets a bit hyperbolic at times). The guy clearly loves poetry and shares through his emotional and intellectual responses to poems the proper way to approach verse. I read in another review that the first seven chapters are the strongest, most coherent. The first seven chapters follow the thesis of the book and the remaining examine facets of poetry (like post-war Polish poetry) that interest Hirsch as an individual. I found the latter chapters engaging and stimulating but certainly not nearly as instructive as the first seven.

[eileenwysiwyg · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book. Hirsch's love for poets and poetry was infectious for me, and I found myself digging up all kinds of poetry online while I was reading it and after I was finished. I have another Hirsch book on my shelf, and I can't wait to read it!

[webreader_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book might have said what it said in half the words. Poetry, I guess, means not having to abridge your temptation to gush; and dry brevity might not be the way to address poetry; but could we strike a happy medium? I felt somewhat like Mr. Hirsch's editor had a word count he had to meet.Did I learn anything about poetry? Not especially. But I did find a thoroughly delightful poem I'd never seen before about Geoffry the Complete Cat and for this I am ever grateful to Mr. Hirsch and forgive him his wordiness.

[jesslyncummings · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. I can't figure out what it was that I didn't love about it, except that in the last 5 chapters or so (the depressing chapters, I suppose) I really just wanted to be finished with the book. It did however introduce me to many poets whom I had never heard of before. I've read primarily Renaissance through 19th century poetry, but this book is also peppered with modernist and postmodernist works. It's definitely worth a read and I plan to keep my copy around as a handy reference guide.

[macheartist · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book helped me fall in love with poetry. Spend some time with it. Savor your relationship with poetry as it guides you through some fine poems. Then spend a little time with poetry each day, and your life will be all the richer.