by Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Jane Hirshfield, a Californian and one of my favorite poets, writes beautiful image-centered poems of clarity and concision, which sometimes conclude with a sudden and surprising deepening. Here’s just one example.
Green-Striped Melons
They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.
Some people
are like this as well –
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.
An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c)2008 by Jane Hirshfield, whose most recent book of poems is After, Harper Collins, 2006. Poem reprinted from Alaska Quarterly, Vol. 25, nos. 3 & 4, Fall & Winter, 2008, by permission of Jane Hirshfield and the publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
Have you read anything else by Jane Hirshfield that you love? If so, leave a comment. Or have you read other poems that are clear and concise, with sudden and surprising deepenings?
I personally have not read any of Jane Hirshfield’s work (at least to my knowledge–or maybe I’ve read very, very little of her work but may not remember it was her). However, just reading this poem reminds me a lot of Wallace Stevens or even William Carlos Williams, because these two poets focus on objects and write about them in a very clear and concise way–as if they’re almost science and art rolled into one and their poetry ends in unexpected ways. (Can’t you tell that those 2 are my favorite poets?)
Thank you for introducing Jane Hirshfield to us!
Oooh, I love Jane Hirshfield and she is one of the masters at this sudden deepening biz. I went looking for them and found one, “Speed and Perfection”. You can find it, among others, here: http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/2001/Holiday2001/hirshfield.htm
Seems such poems must be fairly brief – I wonder if it’s possible to sustain the element of surprise all the way to the end of a longer poem. Seems the reader would be breathless by the time the deepening came.
It’s a difficult thing she accomplishes. When I try to do it, I tend to achieve something more like a punchline. Very distressing!
Thx Dana!
“Seems such poems must be fairly brief –- I wonder if it’s possible to sustain the element of surprise all the way to the end of a longer poem.”
That’s a very good question, Elizabeth. I will be looking at longer poems through this lens in the coming days.
I just love that Ted Kooser makes this syndicated column available to newspapers and online publications. He’s really where it’s at in terms of his mission to get poetry out there and get people engaged with it.
I think all my favorite poems end with a kind of surprise. Or maybe surprise is not the right word — a kind of “deepening” as Kooser calls it. It’s a turn in which the whole poem unfolds in a sudden strange wonder. I know I go on and on about James Tate but he does this all the time. Like the end of “consumed”: The longing to be pure / is over. You are the stranger / who gets stranger by the hour.”
Thanks for that link, Elizabeth. Those are wonderful, wonderful poems. (And the briefest one, about the apricots, might’ve been my favorite.)
Thanks for the link.So many poets to read.This site is a cornucopia of information.Thanks
I love the melon image.Water melon, rock melons and honey dew melons all feature in my art work.
There is a beautiful tropical decadence about melons…must sound troppo…too many years living on the beach!