Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems

Neither a person entirely broken
nor one entirely whole can speak.

In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.

I was not expecting to enjoy this collection so much. Poem after poem, Hirshfield finds wisdom in image. Her insights are often profound, sometimes comforting, and always a pleasure to read.

Jane Hirshfield has written better collections, but this one still resonates with her revisioning of the most commonplace of things and events into the deeply significant. When so much poetry seemingly is written to exclude the reader, Hirshfield intimately and profoundly includes us.

Extraordinary. When reading books of poetry, I typically mark my favorite pages with sticky notes. I think there are only 10 pages in this book that I have not marked. The poems are simple, elegant, beautiful.

Perhaps a bird is syllogism for love and heartbreak and the days bleed onto themselves in another life we could have been lovers or snakes solemnly wrapped in death grip or undying lovers tryst