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The Beauty

By Jane Hirshfield
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield is a poetic exploration of the human condition, intertwining sensual meditations with philosophical inquiry. Rooted in everyday life and spanning science, culture, and language, the collection illuminates the profound and the peculiar aspects of our shared existence. Through clear, precise, and moving language, Hirshfield contemplates fate, justice, loss, knowledge, and love, offering readers a rich reflection on what it means to be human.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This collection will resonate with readers who appreciate contemporary poetry that combines intellectual rigor with emotional depth. Ideal for those interested in contemplative, mindful reflections on life, loss, and love, as well as fans of poetic works that bridge philosophy, culture, and the natural world.

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Hirshfield is one of America's leading poets. This is her fourth book from Bloodaxe, following Come, Thief (2012), T.S. Eliot Prize shortlisted After (2006) and Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems (2005).

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Jane Hirshfield is a visionary, profoundly original American writer whose poems ask nothing less than what it is to be human. Both sensual meditations and passionate investigations, they reveal complex truths in language luminous and precise. Rooted in the living world, her poems celebrate and elucidate a hard-won affirmation of our human fate. Born of a rigorous questioning of heart, spirit, and mind, they have become indispensable to many American readers in navigating their own lives.

Bloodaxe published her retrospective Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems in 2005, followed by After in 2006, a Poetry Book Society Choice which was short-listed for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and then Come, Thief in 2011. Jane Hirshfield's latest collection, The Beauty, opens with a series of poems exploring both the profundities and the quirks of our shared human existence. She draws intimate meaning from multiple realms: science, culture, language itself, and above all, the luminous materials and minutely particular emotions of daily life.

In their robust negotiation with fate and justice, these clear and moving poems open a new and steepened understanding of our lives' full measure of losses, knowledge, and loves.

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

The Beauty has been praised for its lucid, philosophical, and sensuous poems that balance clarity with mystery. Critics highlight Hirshfield's profound empathy, mindful attention to detail, and the intertwining of cherished specifics with passionate abstraction. Described as embodying quiet wisdom and a deep engagement with human experience, her poetry is celebrated for its vibrant participation in the circle of existence and its illumination of life's full measure.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781780372464

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 26 March 2015

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Bloodaxe Books Ltd

Edition: International

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 138.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 104

Collections

Arts & Culture Jane Hirshfield Non-Fiction Poetry

About the Author

Jane Hirshfield was born in 1953 in New York and lives in northern California. Her first book of poetry published in the UK was Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2005), which draws on her collections Alaya (1982), Of Gravity & Angels (1988), The October Palace (1994), The Lives of the Heart (1997) and Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001). This was followed by four later collections, After (Bloodaxe Books, 2006), a Poetry Book Society Choice, which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, Come, Thief (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), The Beauty (Bloodaxe Books, 2015) and Ledger (2020). In 2008 Bloodaxe published Jane Hirshfield's lectures Hiddenness, Surprise, Uncertainty: Three Generative Energies of Poetry (Newcastle/ Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures). Jane Hirshfield edited the bestselling anthology Women in Praise of the Sacred (1994), and co-translated The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono No Komachi and Izumi Shikibu (1988) another bestseller in the States and, with Robert Bly, Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems (2004). Her own poetry was translated into Polish by Czeslaw Milosz, who also wrote the introduction to her Polish Selected Poems. She has won numerous literary awards.

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