Abstract: A combination of critical acclaim and popular appeal has pro-pelled Edward Hirsch's career from its beginning. Starting with his first book, For the Sleepwalkers (1981), which won the Lavan Younger Poets Award, Hirsch has been honored with a breathless series of prestigious distinctions, including the Delmore Schwartz Award (1985), a Guggenheim fellowship (1985), the National Book Critics Circle Award (1987), the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Rome Prize (1988), the Modern Language Association's William Riley Parker Prize (1992), and a MacArthur fellowship (1998). These accolades have been bestowed on Hirsch the poet, but he has another successful role: that of an advocate for the genre itself. His article "How to Read These Poems" originally appeared in DoubleTake magazine (Fall 1996) and was designed to help expand the audience for poetry. Printed in pamphlet form, it was then distributed throughout the United States in bookstores. That work eventually expanded to a book, a reader's guide for all levels of poetry enthusiasts. The reader is the final focus of all Hirsch's prose and poetry and has been called by Hirsch the "hero" of his books.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-01-21
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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