Nine gates : entering the mind of poetry : essays / by Jane Hirschfield.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hirshfield, Jane, 1953-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetics.

Poetry--History and criticism.

Poetry.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

ix, 228 pages ; 20 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : HarperCollins, [1997]

Summary:

A gate enables passage between what is inside and what is outside, and the connection poetry forges between inner and outer lives is the fundamental theme of these nine essays. Nine Gates begins with a close examination of the roots of poetic craft in "the mind of concentration" and concludes by exploring the writer's role in creating a sense of community that is open, inclusive, and able to bind the individual and the whole in a way that allows each full self-expression. In between, Nine Gates illumines the nature of originality, translation, the various strategies by which meaning enfolds itself in language, poetry's roots in oral memory, and the importance of the shadow to good art.

In part a primer for the general reader, Nine Gates is also a manual for the working writer, with each "gate" exploring particular strategies of language and thought that allow a poem to convey meaning and emotion with clarity and force.

Contents:

Poetry and the mind of concentration

The question of originality

The world is large and full of noises : thoughts on translation

The myriad leaves of words

Poetry and the mind of indirection

Two secrets : on poetry's inward and outward looking

Facing the lion : the way of shadow and light in some twentieth-century poems

Poetry as a vessel of remembrance

Writing and the threshold life.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0060174560

9780060174569

OCLC:

36510536

Online:

Contributor biographical information