<p>When he arrived, Hirsch was just publishing his second book, the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning <i>Wild Gratitude</i>, and considered the UH gig his first serious job. In the intervening years, he’s produced seven more books and has won numerous other awards for his poetry, from the Rome Prize to a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>Still, he may be most widely known for his 1999 book <i>How to Read a Poet and Fall in Love with Poetry</i>, which introduced generations of readers — and many Houstonians — to the art form. Hirsch credits local literary institution Inprint with the inspiration for that work of literary pedagogy. “It was the people who would come to the Inprint readings that helped me formulate my ideas, and turned me from being a writer for the initiated to one for the uninitiated.”</p><p><img alt="092-5.5x8.5-Standing-Paperback-Book-Mockup-COVERVAULT" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="7e890a39dc616bdcfdae875ce379f10e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="cd201" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDUzMjU5Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMTc2NTI5MX0.HQdJyQMYtY9CnFezgiyfOgvyIjKpTdU8lolog-BFWFc/img.jpg?width=980"/></p><p>But like any life, Hirsch’s has its wounds and scars. Most notably is the one resulting from the unexpected death of his 22-year-old son in 2011. Grief consumed him for several years, and ultimately led to the creation a book-length elegy, which was published in 2014 and named for his son, <i>Gabriel</i>. Now, six years on, he’s produced another work,<i> Stranger by Night</i>, published in March. It also contains numerous elegies — to his son, as well as to lost friends, such as the poets Mark Strand and Phillip Levine, among others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In the opening poem, “My Friends Don’t Get Buried,” he describes visiting the sites of friends’ scattered ashes, writing “I am a delinquent mourner/stepping on pinecones, forgetting to pray/But the mourning goes on anyway/because my friends keep dying/without a schedule.” In the title poem, “Stranger by Night,” which is a reference to Hirsch’s declining eyesight, he writes, “After I lost/my peripheral vision/I started getting sideswiped by pedestrians cutting in front of me almost randomly/like memories/I couldn’t see coming.”</p><p>Remarking on the new book, Hirsch says it represents “a kind of spiritual arc” that that carries on from the previous work about his son.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>There are several poems that look back in time to when Hirsch was himself a younger man, teaching poetry in coal country in Pennsylvania, or working on the railroad or living in Detroit. Houston, too, makes an appearance in the form of “Let’s Go Down to the Bayou,” a poem about how writing can serve as a secular sacrament. Houston is also name-checked in several other poems.</p><p>“[The book] is, ultimately, a celebration of all the things that have been meaningful to me,” he says. “It’s an intense look backward at what is sustaining to me.”</p><p>As for Hirsch’s legacy, it will be exemplified in both his own works and the scores of poets he taught and influenced over his long career, many of them in Houston.</p><p>“The city came as surprise to many of the poets who came to study in Houston, be they from Greece and China, San Francisco or Portland,” says Hirsch, adding, “I was born working-class in Chicago and, if there is one thing I can recognize about Houston, it is this: Its raw energy makes it truly an American place.”</p><p><strong>Two poems in Hirsch’s new collection homage Houston.</strong></p><p><em>Let’s Go Down<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>to the Bayou</em></p><p>Let’s go down to the bayou</p><p>and cast our sins</p><p>into the brown water</p><p>on little strips of paper</p><p>slowly floating uphill<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>that way we did that fall</p><p>when we moved to Houston</p><p>and lived with a small</p><p>anonymity</p><p>in a large complex</p><p>set up for the families<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>of patients treated</p><p>for months</p><p>in a nearby hospital<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>because maybe this time</p><p>our neighbor’s daughter</p><p>with the shaved head</p><p>will be healed</p><p>and the bayou will accept</p><p>our murky sins</p><p>the way God never did<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>and cleanse us.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p><em>The Task</em></p><p>You never expected</p><p>to spend so many hours</p><p>staring down an empty sheet</p><p>of lined paper</p><p>in the harsh inner light</p><p>of an all-night diner,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>ruining your heart</p><p>over mug after mug<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p>of bitter coffee</p><p>and reading Meister Eckhart</p><p>or St. John of the Cross</p><p>or some other mystic</p><p>of nothingness</p><p>in a brightly colored booth</p><p>next to a window</p><p>looking out</p><p>at a deserted off-ramp</p><p>or unfinished bridge</p><p>or garishly lit parking lot</p><p>backing up</p><p>on detroit or houston</p><p>or some other city</p><p>forsaken at three a.m.</p><p>with loners</p><p>and insomniacs</p><p>facing the darkness</p><p>of an interminable night</p><p>that stretched into months</p><p>and years.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
Keep Reading
Show less