Poetry & Reading by Jane Hirshfield

"Flowering Vetch" by Jane Hirshfield can now be read here on 2GQ. Jane recently appeared in Portland at Literary Arts' Poetry Downtown series.

Flowering Vetch

Each of the tragedies can be read
as the tale of a single ripening self,
every character part of one soul.
The comedies can be included in this as well.
Often the flaw is a flaw of self-knowledge;
sometimes greed. For this reason
the comic glint of a school of herring leads to no plot line,
we cannot imagine a tragedy of donkeys or bees.
Before the ordinary realities, ordinary failures:
hunger, coldness, anger, longing, heat.
Yet one day, a thought as small as a vetch flower opens.
After, no longer minding the minor and almost wordless role,
playing the messenger given the letter
everyone knows will arrive too late or ruined by water.
To have stopped by the fig and eaten was not an error, then,
but the reason for going.

_______________________

Jane Hirshfield reads in Portland on Tuesday, April 18.  "Flowering Vetch" is from her newest book, After: Poems (HarperCollins, 2006), and is published on 2GQ with the kind permission of the poet.

The author of six collections of poetry including After: Poems (2006), Jane Hirshfield was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001). Her work has been featured in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker and The Nation. Hirshfield is the author of a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1998), and she has co-edited and translated two books of Japanese verse by women, The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan and Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women. Hirshfield's appearance is presented by Literary Arts in cooperation with the Academy of American Poets as part of National Poetry Month.

First Congregational Church (1126 SW Park Avenue, Portland)
Tickets: $18 General; $12 College/Senior; $5 Youth
Tickets are available online or at the door. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Online tickets available at Literary Arts Box Office.