The Heart of American Poetry

by Edward Hirsch

An acclaimed poet and our greatest champion for poetry offers an inspiring and insightful new reading of the American tradition

We live in unsettled times. What is America and who are we as a people? How do we understand the dreams and betrayals that have shaped the American experience? For poet and critic Edward Hirsch, poetry opens up new ways of answering these questions, of reconnecting with one another and with what’s best in us.
 
In this landmark new book from Library of America, Hirsch offers deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems we thought we knew—from Anne Bradstreet’s “The Author to Her Book” and Phillis Wheatley’s “To S.M. a Young African Painter, on seeing his Works” to Garrett Hongo’s “Ancestral Graves, Kahuku” and Joy Harjo’s “Rabbit Is Up to Tricks”—exploring how these poems have sustained his own life and how they might uplift our diverse but divided nation. 
 
“This is a personal book about American poetry,” writes Hirsch, “but I hope it is more than a personal selection. I have chosen forty poems from our extensive archive and songbook that have been meaningful to me,
part of my affective life, my critical consideration, but I have also tried to be cognizant of the changing playbook in American poetry, which is not fixed but fluctuating, ever in flow, to pay attention to the wider consideration, the appreciable reach of our literature. This is a book of encounters and realizations.”
 

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Essays

590 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 19, 2022

About the author

Edward Hirsch is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. He was born in Chicago in 1950—his accent makes it impossible for him to hide his origins—and educated at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in Folklore. His devotion to poetry is lifelong.He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, the Prix de Rome, and an Academy of Arts and Letters Award. In 2008, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
bio-img
Edward Hirsch’s first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers (1981), received the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University and the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets. His second collection, Wild Gratitude (1986), won the National Book Critics Award.
Since then, he has published six additional books of poems: The Night Parade (1989), Earthly Measures (1994),On Love (1998), Lay Back the Darkness (2003), Special Orders (2008), and The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of poems.Hirsch is also the author of five prose books, including A Poet’s Glossary (2014), the result of decades of passionate study, Poet’s Choice (2006), which consists of his popular columns from the Washington Post Book World, and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller. He is the editor of Theodore Roethke’s Selected Poems (2005) and co-editor of The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology (2008). He also edits the series “The Writer’s World” (Trinity University Press).Edward Hirsch taught for six years in the English Department at Wayne State University and seventeen years in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. He is now president of the
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Reviews

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's this: I intended to read this collection of essays on poets this way -- an essay a day only, as it didn't seem the type of book you read coast to coast. But then I started running stop signs like a good ole boy from Georgia. Cops set up barriers. Blew through those too.

And it's not that I was 5-star ga-ga for the book. How can you be when it is one essay after another, each focusing on one particular poem by one particular poet Edward Hirsch deems important enough to be part (valve, chamber, etc.) of the HEART of American poetry? Like any reader, you're going to enjoy some essays and some poems more than others. You're only human, after all, and the heart is a lonely hunter.

So, which poets made the cut? Mostly familiar sorts, with a few surprises. They are, chronologically: Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville (a poet, too, people), Emily Dickinson (I mean, can you BELIEVE?), Emma Lazarus (Note: news to me), Edwin Arlington Robinson, Amy Lowell, Robert Frost (If you can believe Dickinson, you can believe this one), Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes, Sterling A. Brown (another unknown to both yours and truly), Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Johnson (all together now: Who?), Robert Hayden, Muriel Rukeyser, Julia De Burgos (Another new-to-me!), Gwendolyn Brooks, Anthony Hecht, Denise Levertov, Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, James Wright, Philip Levine, Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, Lucille Clifton, C.K. Williams, Michael S. Harper (?), Louise Glück, Garrett Hongo (?), and Joy Harjo.

A few surprises in that list, yes, but more surprising is how Hirsch doesn't always use a war horse poem as an example for analysis. For Bishop it's "In the Waiting Room" (vs., say, "The Fish"), for Frost it's "The Most of It" (vs., say, "The Road Not Taken"), for Allen Ginsberg it's "America" (vs., say, "Howl").

The drill goes like this: each chapter starts with the poem, then Hirsch launches into a mix of biography and analysis about the poet's overall work/impact on American literature, and finally Hirsch gets down to an analysis of the lead-off poem.

It goes without saying some chapters were a lot of fun because, well, the POET is in your wheelhouse or the POEM is pretty cool in its dark-horse kind of way. For example, for O'Hara, Hirsch dips into that poet's wonderful collection Lunch Poems for this poem about the day Billie Holiday (nicknamed "Lady Day") died:


The Day Lady Died

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing


Then, in the chapter proper, you get a representative paragraph like so:

"O'Hara was a poet of lived experience. He liked to mingle with Manhattan crowds and timed his poems to the pace of the metropolis at different hours, sometimes rapid and carefree, other times quieter. Some of them he wrote at parties after work, some of them he scrawled on napkins at the Cedar Tavern, where the abstract expressionists hung out, many of them he dashed off on his lunch hour in midtown. There are a lot of casual poems that read like jottings or diary entries, but even his throwaways have charisma. Allen Ginsberg noted that he had 'a common ear / for our deep gossip' ('City Midnight Junk Strains'). O'Hara's poetry is not confessional -- in fact, he disliked Robert Lowell's work and mocked the whole idea of the confessional poem -- and yet his personality shines so vividly that you feel as if he's still there. He's an extravagantly gay poet, but he's also an all-purpose seducer. You hear him talking and feel like ambling over with a drink. Maybe you'll start smoking again, just for the hell of it. It's hard not to believe that you're going to become friends. People tend to fall in love with O'Hara in the same irreparable way that they fall in love with Keats."

That sort of thing. A mix of Hirsch being erudite and casual all at once. About poetry. The genre that scares the be-jesus out of so many readers.

Can't be all THAT bad, then, can it? (Rhetorical question and cue to shake your head "no" like so... there you go!)

[Vesna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Library of America is a venerable publisher in preserving the American literary heritage and when it publishes an anthology that suggests to go to “The Heart of American Poetry,” it raises the expectations and excites the lovers of the U.S. literary tradition. However, very soon it becomes clear that it should have been subtitled “Personal Anthology” for the anthology in many ways reflects Hirsch’s personal taste and choices. In his introduction, Hirsch sheds some light on his intimate understanding of what constitutes the American poetic tradition. He is also open that he worked on this anthology during the Covid-19 quarantine that prevented him from accessing his library and forced him to rely on his memory. I think that these two factors contributed to some of the weaknesses of this anthology.

There are many strengths, above all in Hirsch’s perceptive readings of individual poems. Some essays are almost entirely his commentaries on the selected poems and a reader would not find much more about Robert Frost or Wallace Stevens as poets, for example, except for an astute analysis of a single poem (by each) of his choice. The strongest chapters, however, also discuss the poems in the context of the poet’s overall writings and life, literary influences, and general socio-cultural currents.

While a number of major poets are well represented, there is evidently quite an idiosyncratic inclusion as well as exclusion of others. It is certainly welcome to present the so-called ”minor” poets whose valuable contribution is convincingly argued in his essays, such as Emma Lazarus, Robert Johnson or Julia de Burgos. But it is mystifying that Hirsch opted for a number of other lesser known poets without a broader justification except for essaying on his personal connections, while bypassing the acknowledged greats, someone like Robert Lowell, or, from the 19th century, Edgar Alan Poe and Emerson, all of whom have made an important imprint on the American canon.

One of the noble guiding ideas is that Hirsch “tried to remain conscious of our diversiform ancestry and heritage” (p. xvi). And, in light of the recent rise of an anti-immigrant wave, Hirsch makes a powerful and commendable statement by including “The New Colossus” penned by Emma Lazarus and inscribed in the pedestal of The Statue of Liberty. But then the immigrant theme with its major bilingual representatives, such as Brodsky or Simic, both of whom were elected as US Poet Laurates, is mostly ignored.

If Hirsch wanted to present different and complex social, historical, and cultural currents in America as reflected in its poetry, which is clear from his essays, then this project only partly succeeded as the poets from the West Coast, Midwest and the South are scarcely presented. There is also a certain measure of inconsistency. For example, Hirsch takes a refreshing approach to American poetry that “moves fluently between speech and song” in an included song by the blues singer Robert Johnson, but then it would have been apt to include Bob Dylan (even referred to in the context of the blues heritage, p. 229) or Lou Reed (also mentioned in the introduction with the quoted lyrics on p. xxv) who lent the same voice to a different generation.

The choice of poems is also occasionally idiosyncratic, foregoing some of the greatest poems for lesser known ones and, as such, the anthology does not quite fit its description as a collection of “forty essential American poems.” Theodore Roethke’s “My Pappa’sWaltz”, one of his most anthologized poems, is arguably more “essential” for this poet than his “Cuttings.” Or Marianne Moore’s famous two versions of “The Poetry” are foregone for “The Steeple-Jack”, as good as it is.

Overall, the anthology succeeds in those brilliant essays when Hirsch is less personal, but its idiosyncrasy still gets in the way to call it “The Heart of American Poetry.”

My thanks to the publisher, Library of America, for an ARC via NetGalley.

3.5/5

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think this is accurately "the heart of American poetry" as much as Edward Hirsch's 40 favorite poets and a poem by each. He has a long essay following each poem where he talks about the poem and the poet's life, generally also going into a few lines of other works by the poet. The poems stretch through American history chronologically and have some representation of POC, women, etc. but it still feels very much like the poets you'd be required to read in Poetry 101. It's also frustrating that he often picked lesser-known poems that really don't seem like the poets' best works.

Almost none of my favorite poets are included in this anthology, which is not surprising but is disappointing. Missing American poets whom I love include Anne Sexton, Edgar Allen Poe, Nicky Finney, e.e. cummings, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Rose Hartwick Thorpe, just to name a few.

I also found that the essays tended to be so long and dry. There were a few cases where I learned interesting things about poets but in many cases I found myself skimming these sections because they felt so much like a droning college lecture. They will be illuminating and interesting to those who are very much like the author and his peers, but I don't think they will get anybody into poetry who wasn't already and certainly won't make poetry seem accessible to those who see it as dry and confusing. The book is still a good read and I found some new poems and poets, but I had hoped for more.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selected poets and one of their poems (though more are noted alongside) are delved into, scrutinized, exalted, and deciphered. Each in their own cozy chapter, as it were. So this is a leisure read, lingering on the selected poem and getting to know the poet behind it. Bedside is nice or when you cozy up in a cafe, alone. Opinionated, yes.. I have always believed poetry, like art, is taken in by the beholder as their mindset most feels at that moment. It can change as we do. (For example, Hirsch snuffled at Dickinson in earlier years.) Many of his views have you revisit the poems yourself, some with an “Aha” others with a “WTF are you talking about?” .. but in reading them again, you get (usually) a different perspective, if only via his. Longfellow, Whitman, Melville, Moore, Brooks, Levertov, O’Hara, Ginsberg, Plath, Clifton, and a slew of others (what is the term for a group of poets?) that round out to 40 poets/poems in all. At 449 pages, including acknowledgments, it’s a hefty read, so do take it leisurely. Enjoy!

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book presents forty poems from prominent American poets, interspersed with essays by Hirsch offering background on the poet, the poem, and how the poem reflects upon America. It’s a fine collection of poems, and a thoughtful discussion of them. There will be something new to most readers. While most of the poets are well-known and while there are a few highly anthologized poems: e.g. Emma Lazarus’s “The New Colossus,” Dickinson’s #479 [Because I Could Not Stop for Death,] and Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” there are many more off the beaten path selections to be discovered.

As for whether the selection captures the heart of American poetry, on that wouldn’t necessarily agree. That said, it’s presented as Hirsch’s personal selection; the pieces in it are great poems, and he has as much right to his views as anyone. The anthology does capture many elements of the American poetic voice. It does a fine job of capturing the many strains of dissent, critique, and resistance from the Harlem Renaissance (e.g. Langston Hughes) to that of the indigenous peoples (e.g. Joy Harjo) to the Beats (e.g. Allen Ginsberg.) What Hirsch seems less comfortable with is the Whitmanian voice of affection and admiration for the country. In writing about Whitman and Frost, Hirsch makes comments about their lack of appeal to him, apparently their respective unbridled positivity and folksiness were found unbecoming of a poet. I felt the fact that Hirsch had to search out one of Whitman’s more angsty and dark compositions in order to be happy with Whitman’s inclusion was telling (Hirsch could hardly leave Whitman out and present the book as capturing the essence of American poetry.)

The anthology reflects much of the cultural and artistic diversity seen in America, but it eschews the middle America voice (i.e. 70% of the poems are from New Jersey and northward up the Atlantic coast, and while New York may be the country’s cultural and publishing capital, skilled poets from South of the Mason-Dixon and more than 150 miles from the Atlantic coast aren’t as much rare flukes as this anthology would suggest.)

I enjoyed reading this anthology, and I learned a great deal from the essays that went along with each poem. The book is definitely worth reading. Mopey Plath-loving New Yorkers are more likely to find it representative of the voice of American poetry than sanguine Whitman-loving Hoosiers, but it’s an enlightening read, either way.

[Laurel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In The Heart of American Poetry Hirsch writes forty essays which introduce readers to poets who have influenced the way we read, write, and speak about poetry. For each of these essays he discussed craft and provided autobiographical information, examining how that had an influence on the writer. I found some of the essays more engaging than others. What I most enjoyed was being introduced to new poets, or re-introduced to poets I had read or learned about. You don't have to be a writer of poetry to enjoy this book. As each essay stands alone, it could be read in short segments if you don't want to dive in head first.

[Anne Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book opened my eyes to many of the different poets who made an important mark on poetry. Hirsch made an effort to highlight contributions from female and BIPOC poets as well, which was completely refreshing.

[Floyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward Hirsch has compiled an eclectic collection of poetry written by Americans, some well-known and some less so. The poems are accompanied with essays which help the reader understand the environment within which the authors were writing.

Though I only recently found a new appreciation for poetry, I think if this book had been the first I had stumbled upon to refresh my exposure to this genre, I would have said, “No, thank you.” There is little to unite the pieces included except (as indicated in the title) it is American Poetry. As I read, I felt as if I were back in my very unsatisfying freshman literature class. As I did, so many years ago, I would walk away and say, “No more!”

Some of the poems were engaging, but many were not. The result is a collection, a book, that receives only three stars from this reader.
______________
This review is based on a free electronic copy provided by the publisher for the purpose of creating this review. The opinions expressed are mine alone.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

To me, there will always be poets missing in an anthology like this, so I accept it is one person's take on forty poems. I felt as if I were attending mini-lectures, or small Bread Loaf lessons, which makes this an anthology to consume slowly and appreciate as we move along.

I read this via NetGalley and would like to purchase a copy to read again, with more attention and a slower pace. It strikes me as a good one to keep in my permanent library.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Library of America for an advanced copy of this collection of American poetry and song.

Poetry speaks to both the heart and the soul, and even more to the mind. A poem or a song ca stir up thoughts of longing, remorse, remiss, want and desire which feeds or batters the soul, but can also make the mind long for more, a better life, a better place, just to be better. Poems speak to the now, and are a reflection of the now a still of the past told in words that show what life was like, what the poet longs it to be, to be looked at in our now, and see how little has changed, or even become worse. Writer, educator and biographer of poems Edward Hirsch in his book The Heart of American Poetry collected works that he feels describe America, how it was and how it has changed, with works by various poets and songwriters.

The book starts with an introduction by Hirsch about himself and how he came to find and adore poetry and poems. This is followed by a brief discussion about poetry in America and how it has been looked at, reviewed and sometimes taught. This collection came together during the start of COVID, so choices, and even discussions might reflect those odd times, that looking back seem like the last glimpse of a sane country. 40 poems presented in order of the poet's birth are presented, from Anne Bradstreet to Joy Harjo complete with essays featuring both commentary and biography. Songs are included, such as Robert Johnson's Crossroads, a song covered by many a bar act and famous British singers.

The book is actually a class on poetry in book form, complete with a syllabus of works and lots of discussion. Hirsch in his essays roams all over, covering the poems, the way they were presented, history around them and and the effect on others. Analysis of musical history and the keys that a song would be played in, plus biographical sketches about the poet, and what the poems mean to him. This is more of a personal choice than a study of poetry in America. These were chosen by him, for him for readers to learn from. People might be surprised by those that are absent, or even the poems that were opted for as representation of the writers. However as much can be learned and shared by the essays, and frankly there are no real dud works in the book, his choices tend to make sense.

Definitely a book for literature students and fans of poetry. A good overview of American works, with excellent commentary that gives a reader much to agree with, or to argue with. That is the great thing about these kind of books. A great gift for poets and songwriters also to see what works, what does not, and what might touch someone's soul a hundred years from now.

[J Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heart of American Poetry by Edward Hirsch is both an analysis of various poems that have spoken to Hirsch as well as a glimpse at how many different ways there are to read and understand poetry.

On the surface, this is an inclusive collection of forty poems, each accompanied by a brief essay on Hirsch's reading. Don't be mislead by any reviewer who only names those part of the traditional canon as being in this book. In the introduction and in his selection, Hirsch is far more inclusive. Maybe some readers only want to mention those usually included in such anthologies, but that says more about them than about this book.

I think what makes this volume so much more important, especially for those who like poetry but often feel they don't "read it right," is that these readings show many different ways into poetry. Yes, Hirsch is a poet himself and is very knowledgeable, but his approaches are very personal in nature. The ways he might approach a poem are ways we might also do so. Just because we have less knowledge in some areas doesn't mean the poem will speak to us any less. When we begin to trust our reading of poetry we can then look deeper, whether into the mechanics of poetry or the historical context of certain poems and poets. Our readings will be different from Hirsch's, but so what. We take from each poem what we can, and learning both method and specific information through this book will only enrich our future reading of poetry.

I am going to suggest another book that would make a great companion to this one. My intention is not to have it look like an either/or but as complementary volumes. The other book is The Difference is Spreading edited by Al Filreis and Anna Strong Safford. The similarity is that each book consists of a poet commenting on a specific poem. The contrast, and why I think they go so well together, is that while The Heart of American Poetry has one poet commenting on forty poems The Difference is Spreading has fifty different contemporary poets each commenting on a poem of their choosing. Between these books a reader can see many ways, both technical and personal, into a poem. I will also add that the Filreis/Safford book is based loosely on their wonderful ModPo MOOC.

Highly recommended for both those who read poetry often as well as those who like poetry but might not read it very often. Don't let Hirsch's knowledge of poetry intimidate you, appreciate what he offers as commentary and also look at how he approaches each poem and adapt that for your own level of knowledge.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[Vidya Tiru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read of Hirsch and poems by Hirsch, largely thanks to spending time on the Poetry Foundation, I knew I wanted to read this book. Also, the fact that I truly loved and enjoyed other books published by the Library of America, including African American Poetry: : 250 Years Of Struggle & Song, added to my must-read-ness for this book!

And I am so glad I requested it from NetGalley (thank you NetGalley and Library of America). While I do mention that I am done with reading about a third of the book, the format of this book allows readers to pick and choose from the forty poems selected by Hirsch here. Which is what I did; among the poems (and analysis + a look into the poet’s life) I read so far, a couple of my favorites are Hirsch’s analysis of Gwendolyn Brook’s included poem ‘A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, a Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon,’ and Longfellow’s ‘The Jewish Cemetery at Newport.;

I am learning a lot from reading his personal perspective of the poem as well as his expert analysis. Through the book, readers can better understand how to read and dissect poetry; that is, though each reader approaches a poem (or anything for that matter) differently, looking at it from Hirsch’s view is providing me a whole new world of viewpoints.

In addition, I am loving all the biographical aspects Hirsch includes for each poet, and the boost to my vocabulary too!! Last but not the least, the book is definitely doing a wonderful job of introducing me to poets and poems I have not read before, so thank you!

In Summary
A must-have for poetry lovers, and for those who want to learn to understand poetry better as well.

Source: e-ARC from NetGalley

[Keith Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course American poetry is larger than this. It would be fairly easy to come up with a different set of 40 poems to represent the heart of it all, although there might be some overlap in poets. But that doesn't change the accomplishment here.

Hirsch is one of our great readers of poetry, and has mastered the art of explicating poems for the "general reader," whoever he/she/they are. He doesn't talk down to the reader, even while he is filling in gaps that serious readers of poetry already know. And he often adds details and interpretations that feel new and lively and completely unexpected.

Now I don't really need help reading Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Williams, Pound, Hayden, even up to most of the contemporaries. I've done the reading there, and those poems have been a central part of my education, too. But Wheatley, Hart Crane, Sterling Brown -- those people, even if I know the work, even the poem under discussion-- deserved more of my attention. And Hirsch has provided a way into them (after reading his essay on Crane, for instance, I spent a couple of months earlier this year immersed in his work).

So it was very interesting, even a lot of fun, to spend some good time with these 40 poems and their poets, guided by a smart and enthusiastic critic.

[John Fredrickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an outstanding overview of American poetry from it's earliest beginnings in the 17th century to the current times. Each of the poets considered has a representative poem presented as well as commentary both on the poet as well as the dynamics of the poem itself.

The marvel of this book is Hirsch's sensitive commentary on the poets and poems. While this seems almost foolish to state, many other similar poetry books do not achieve this at all the way that Hirsch does here. Hirsch manages to provide insight into each poet's history and the efforts they were engaged in, and uses the selected poem to highlight (some of?) what the poet was going after. In addition to considering the poem's relation to the poet's oeuvre, Hirsch also considers puns and poetic effects as he unpacks each poem.

Though there were numerous poets in the collection that did not resonate with me much, I believe I learned something from the discussion of every one.

One benefit of this book, beyond the obvious statements above, is that the reader gets exposed to new poets to explore more deeply. For me, Robert Hayden and Louise Glück are very much on the list of poets to read.

[Lanette Sweeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

In The Heart of American Poetry, acclaimed poet Ed Hirsch writes 40 biographic and critical essays about the poets he feels are most emblematic of the American tradition. His focus, after describing the poet's life and background, is then brought to a single one of each poet's poems. I felt the gender and racial balance of the chosen poets wasn't too bad for a white man, either: 16 of the 40 are women, and at least 9 are people of color. (Some more recent poets of color feel absent, but perhaps Hirsch had been working on this book over a longer period of time.) Joy Harjo, the U.S. Poet Laureate when the book was published, is the last poet in the book.

Hirsch's essays are engaging and informative and drew me in to such an extent that I didn't want to put this book down, which is unusual for a book of criticism or poetry. He shares background on each poet's life and leanings, loves and influences, and then does a thoughtful analysis of the poem he's chosen to represent them. Anyone interested in American history (with many poems focusing on a particular war or the statue of liberty or other cultural icons) and/or poetry should read this book. Highly recommend.

[AcademicEditor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edward Hirsch's The Heart of American Poetry offers a collection of forty poems accompanied by personal and analytical essays. While the book succeeds in providing an interesting array of poems, it also leaves readers contemplating the broader implications of representation in the curation of such a significant anthology. From Anne Bradstreet to Joy Harjo, Hirsch’s selections span a wide historical and cultural spectrum, highlighting the diverse voices that have shaped American poetry. However, while Hirsch’s expertise and passion for poetry shine through, one cannot help but wish for a more inclusive editorial voice in this collection. The poetry landscape, especially in a nation as diverse as the United States, could have greatly benefited from the perspective of someone outside the old vanguard as the compiler, such as a woman, person of color, or other marginalized scholar. This is not to undermine Hirsch's contributions, but rather to emphasize the importance of varied lenses in understanding and presenting literary traditions.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to review a temporary digital ARC in exchange for an unbiased review.

[joyce w. laudon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward Hirsch is surely qualified to author this title. He has authored a number of books of both poetry and prose. I previously reviewed his 100 Poems to Break Your Heart.

This is an erudite, personal, well-edited collection of poetry ranging from Phyllis Wheatley through Joy Harjo. Just some of the poets whose works are here include Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Amy Lowell, Marianne Moore, T.S. Eliot, Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Gwendolyn Brooks and, John Ashbery among many others. This is truly a college level poetry class in a book. I highly recommend it. The Heart of American Poetry is a title to which I will return again and again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the Library of America for this title. All opinions are my own. Note that all profits from this title will be used to support the mission of the nonprofit Library of America.

This title will be published on 19 Apr 2022

[Betsy]

Edward Hirsch's new book The Heart of American Poetry satiated my longing to study poetry and literature in an academic setting. Each chapter dives into a different well loved poem, such as Emma Lazrus's "New Colussus", Dickenson's "Because I Did Not Stop For Death" and Edwin Robinsons "Eros Turannos," to offer an analysis of the poem. Each analysis dives into the use of different poetic devices and biographical tidbits of the poets lives to contextualize each poem.

Personally it was challenging to set aside; however the short essays could easily be savored over time. Hirsch's other books helped me expand my knowledge of poetry and this one followed suit. Scholars and lovers of poetry will want to have this book on their shelves.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced readers copy!

This review can also be found on my blog: http://glamorousbookgal.blogspot.com/...

[Emm H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a lovely collection, well-curated. Hirsch's introducrtion set the right tone, and remains accessible to students and long-time poetry lovers alike.

He notes that he has "found it heartening to write this book about American poetry at a disheartening time in our republic, a time of broken promises. These poems hold us to a standard and remind us of the sacredness of the individual life, the single testamentary".

Each poem is followed by a commentary and meditation on why it is representative of American culture.

I also appreciate that he's taken care to include female poets and poets of color, in addtion to more canonical poets.

[Crystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is not what I expected it to be. I might not be well read in the area of American poetry, but even I can see that there were several poets missing from this anthology that should have made the list. Also, I feel like this shouldn't have been called The Heart of American Poetry, but rather Edward Hirsch's Favorite American Poems. The poems he selected were good, but I could have done without the longwinded essays after them. This felt kind of like a book that would be required reading for a college course on poetry and not casual reading.

[Terri Matter · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say this book broadened my understanding of American poetry is an understatement—in fact, I don’t feel it is an exaggeration to say that this book broadened my understanding of America. Hirsch chooses 40 poems that he feels speak to the heart of America, then he writes in great detail about not only each poem, but each poet and the context in which they were writing. Not every poem hit for me, but each one spoke about a different American experience, and as a whole illuminated the diversity and the struggle in current and past America.

[Ron Cruz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent ... like taking a master class in analyzing poetry. I enjoyed so much of it. My favorites in no particular order were:

The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus

Eros Turannos - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Madonna of the Evening Flowers - Amy Lowell

In the Waiting Room - Elizabeth Bishop

Farewell in Welfare Island - Julia de Burgos

Soonest Mended - John Asbery

Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio - James Wright

To Cipriano in the Wind - Philip Levine

Ancestral Graves, Kahuku - Garrett Hongo

Rabbit is Up to Tricks - Joy Harjo

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential guide for devotees of poetry-greats such as Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, Hayden, Hughes, Melville, and Plath.
Hirsch offers original reflections, insights, and revelations of some of their most compelling work – a single poem from each of their respective canons. Each poem offers a statement on American culture and society that truly resonates.
Thanks to NetGalley and Library of America for granting this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is an anthology of what the author's view of poetry via his essay and chosen works of poetry which he likes, it was not the mainstream poets we love and have come to know from many books but more a different list of poets and their works. that wet your interest to not stay stale but to try out other poets, I love poetry and certainly this author is an educator of the poetry and the how to look at it. I highly recommend this book for the not so faint of heart poetry lovers.

[Nicolas Duran · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a true 3.5 stars for me—it soared to great heights at parts, while other parts could hardly keep me awake. As with all of Hirsch’s books, I find myself returning constantly to a few of his selections and essays, in this case his essays on the Whitman poem and the Dickinson poem, and we’ll see what else in time. It took me a while to read, but I’m glad I luxuriated in it. All in all, quite solid.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 480 pages, this book is a semester class on how to read certain American poems. It is a lecture series by professor Hirsch as he first "reads" the original poems then gives his personal and academic essay/lecture on the reading of that particular poem from his lens.

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent review history, and sample of American poetry. Professor Hirsch is a major scholar. He has in my view an eccentric view of culture that makes the choices and essays here especially useful and insightful editor and guide.

[Neveen]

This book is fantastic, covering not only a profound collection of poems but also the analysis that pertains to those poems. The collection of poems and the analysis are both included in this book. I plan to give it one more reading in the near future.

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Heart Of American Poetry For Independence Day

Each year on the Fourth of July I write a book review appropriate to the themes of the day. The book this year is "The Heart of American Poetry" (2022) by Edward Hirsch, published by the Library of America. Hirsch is both a poet and a tireless advocate for poetry. He aims in this book to increase appreciation of American accomplishment in this art, an accomplishment which often is undervalued or overlooked. The book consists of forty poems by as many American poets ranging over a 400 year period. The poems are arranged chronologically by birth date of the poet, beginning with Anne Bradstreet (1612 -- 1672) and her poem "The Author to Her Book" and concluding with "Rabbit is Up to Tricks", a poem by Joy Harjo (b. 1951). An essay by Hirsch accompanies each poem.

At the close of "The Heart of American Poetry" Hirsch says: "This is a book that I've been preparing to write for much of my life, and I'm grateful to the Library of America for proposing it to coincide with its fortieth anniversary." The book opens with Hirsch's essay "The Education of a Poet". Hirsch describes his early life is the child of working class parents in Chicago and of his determination to become a poet. The book throughout has a strongly personal, introspective tone, as Hirsch writes: "This is a personal book about American poetry, but I hope it is more than a personal selection. I have chosen forty poems from our extensive archive and songbook that have been meaningful to me, part of my affective life, my critical consideration, but I have also tried to be cognizant of the changing playbook in American poetry, which is not fixed but fluctuating, ever in flow, and to pay attention to the wider consideration, the appreciable reach of our literature."

Hirsch identifies some of the themes and sources of American poetry over its long course. Broadly, the poems celebrate America and its promise of freedom and equality from a variety of perspectives.
So too, the poetry is critical of the many ways the United States has fallen short and continues to fall short in the realization of its ideals. The poems reflect American diversity through time, with familiar and unfamiliar writers, and multitudinous voices, including Puritans, women, Indians, African Americans,Jewish people, intellectuals and factory workers, blues singers, and much more. Each poem offers a view of America, its hopes, dreams and failings. In his Introduction, Hirsch points out that American poetry can be read horizontally and vertically. Horizontal poems show the speaker in relation to others, including family and society. Vertical poems show the speaker alone with self and considering his or her relationship to spiritual concerns and to God.

Hirsch's essays accompanying each poem add to the book a great deal. The essays describe Hirsch's experience with each poet and offer a consideration of the poet's work and life. He discusses each poem on a line-by-line basis with a discussion of metaphor, verse form, structure, and rhthym and other elements of poetic art. The essays generally conclude with a brief summary describing what the poet was about and the significance of the poet's work. The essays will add to the reader's appreciation, regardless of the familiarity or its lack he or she may bring to poetry.

The Nineteenth Century Poets discussed in the book include Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, and Emma Lazarus. The Twentieth Century witnessed a broad flowering of American poetry which is still under-appreciated. I have a special fondness for two American poets, Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane, who are included in this volume with insightful discussions from Hirsch. Stevens is represented by the meditative poem "Sunday Morning" while Crane is represented by "To Brooklyn Bridge" from his long poem "The Bridge". Both poems are special to me in the way they combine secularity with religious feeling. Crane's difficult, visionary poem offers a sense of meaning and purpose in America and its history through love and freedom in the face of the difficulties of an apparently materialistic age. As a New Yorker, Hirsch recalls his experiences crossing back and forth over the Brooklyn Bridge. He writes of Hart Crane and his answer to the pessimism of T.S. Elliot's "The Waste Land":

"The first time I crossed Brooklyn Bridge I didn't feel at all as if death had undone so many. On the contrary, the place seemed filled with life. Now looking up at the cables of the bridge which soar over the water, I recall how Crane countered modern pessimism with a renewed hope in the American city. He held fast to the American story and celebrated our modernity. I believe that his work makes a promise to the future. I try to remember that promise when I feel disheartened about our country. All you need to do is to head over to Brooklyn Bridge to remember its grandeur."

I found "The Heart of American Poetry" a moving and fitting way to think about our country on Independence Day. In difficult times, readers may experience a sense of the issues facing our country together with a sense of hope.

Robin Friedman

[Sydney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt like an American poetry masterclass. I discovered new poets I can't wait to dig into.