Reading Poetry: In the Beginning is the Relation

Edward Hirsch, a MacArthur Fellow, has published nine books of poems, most recently Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy, and The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together 35 years of work. He has also published five prose books, among them A Poet’s Glossary (2014), a complete compendium, and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller. Hirsch is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and is this year’s Kristina Stahl Writer in Residence.