The White Fire of Time

by Ellen Hinsey

A stunning new work by a profound poetic talent.

In this exquisitely coherent new collection of poems, Ellen Hinsey explores the boundary between poetry and metaphysics, and the intimate bonds between morality and mortality. Drawing on philosophical and spiritual readings, The White Fire of Time displays a breadth of cultural knowledge and a deep understanding of the wisdom of the body. The poems in this book-length sequence are gorgeous, brooding, musical, elegant and serious. The work is composed in three The World, meditations on the ordinary, the daily life of the body and its place in nature and time; The Temple, investigations into language and the ethical life; and The Celestial Ladder, in which poems trace the soul's spiraling journey through desire, love, grief and endurance. Each section mirrors the structure of the whole, with poems following specific forms, serving to create a symphonic rhythm in which details, metaphors and meanings build and interweave.

Genres: Poetry

104 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2002

About the author

American author Ellen Hinsey has for the last two decades lived in Europe. She has taught at the French graduate school the Ecole Polytechnique and currently teaches at Skidmore College’s Paris program.
Hinsey’s first poetry collection, "Cities of Memory," won the Yale University Series Award in Poetry. Beginning in February 2002, she traveled to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague to listen to witness sessions. Her third book, "Update on the Descent," addresses this experience and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series.
She is the translator of "The Wild Harmonies" and "The Secret Piano."

Reviews

[Ganesh]

This quote from an interview with the poet intrigued me:

"Some years ago in an interview I talked about the idea of "radical reflection," which in my mind means not the adherence to a certain set of beliefs but the power of reflection in itself. The process of honing and developing our abilities to think and inhabit a space of meditation. In Hannah Arendt's The Life of the Mind, she poses the question whether the activity of thinking as such could be among the activities which can condition individuals against "evil doing". This is a way that pure "reflection" becomes one of the most radical of acts."

Here is the entire interview:

http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archive...

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

…The moment—great abyss of now: bearing the fruit of all moments before, ripe with disorganized creation.

This is a book for serious readers of poetry. Read my review here:
https://msarki.substack.com/p/the-whi...

[Cyrus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeous,deeply ambitious book that brought Rilke to mind. The richness of Hinsey's language is a powerful and able match for her spiritual and philosophical investigations and insights. Stunning poetry!