How to Receive the Music of Poetry - C0499 - Jane Hirshfield
April 1, 2026
Host Justine Willis-Thoms interviews poet Jane Hirshfield via Zoom from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hirshfield begins by advising listeners to treat poetry like listening to a trusted voice sharing deep truths, not seeking secret meanings. She reads her poem 'I Wanted to be Surprised,' which lists unexpected moments from a porcupine to love endings, highlighting the surreal continuity of life during the pandemic. The discussion turns to how the pandemic has disrupted normality, with Hirshfield noting that 'normality itself was an illusion' and we are forever changed. She shares her personal experience of lockdown, contrasting her canceled book tour with the solace of daily walks and solitude. Hirshfield then reads a second poem with a long title, written during a residency on Captiva Island in Florida, where she waded in rainwater, making climate change immediate. The poem spans evolution, the International Space Station, Aleppo, and the refugee crisis, proposing that the world could have been different. Hirshfield explains that poetry, through beauty and form, allows us to absorb difficult realities like suffering and fragility, citing Rilke and Aristotle on the marriage of beauty and terror. The episode closes with information on accessing more of Hirshfield's work through her Facebook page or the New Dimensions website.
