Rate this book

Come, Thief (2011)

by Jane Hirshfield(Favorite Author)

4.16 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0307595420 (ISBN13: 9780307595423)

languge

English

genre

Poetry

publisher

Knopf

review 1: Turns out, I don't think I can fall in love with most of Hirshfield's poetry if this book is any indication. I read some, skimmed some, read first stanzas of some. (Poetry is not meant to be skimmed or read in part, but most just didn't pull me in.) However! The amazing beauty and power of this poem moved the book to 4 stars for me: This, your life had said, its only pronoun.Here, your life had said, its only house.Let, your life had said, its only order.And did you have a choice in this? You did -Sleeping and waking, the horses around you, the mountains around you,the buildings with their tall, hydraulic shafts.Those of your own kind around you -A few times, you stood on your head.A few times, you chose not to be frightened.A few times, you held another beyond any mea... moresure.A few times, you found yourself held beyond any measure.Mortal, your life will say,as if tasting something delicious, as if in envy.Your immortal life will say this, as it is leaving. - From "When Your Life Looks Back" (p 87-88)I also liked "The Promise" (p 22), Green-striped Melons (p 52), A Roomless Door (p 75), and I Ran Out Naked In The sun (p 86) ("I wanted more I / shouted More / and who could blame me / who could blame").
review 2: A great deal more should be said about this collection than this will say. Poems like this are not just 'tiny universes' self-contained in a network of tight coherence. They've taught themselves to be 'tiny Asian universes'. By which I mean this. To the English language ear, translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry take on the sense that a film gives when periodic frames are deliberately excised and the eye skips and the mind works more to fill in what, naturalistically, should be there. Or take on the risk when a rock climber must gamble his reach for the handhold that isn't felt but that has to be there. In straining, we come to a fuller completion. less

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