The esteemed writer Jane Hirshfield has been a Zen monk and a visiting artist among neuroscientists. She has said this: “It’s my nature to question, to look at the opposite side. I believe that the best writing also does this … It tells us that where there is sorrow, there will be joy; where there is joy, there will be sorrow … The acknowledgement of the fully complex scope of being is why good art thrills … Acknowledging the fullness of things,” she insists, “is our human task.” And that’s the ground Krista meanders with Jane Hirshfield in this conversation: the fullness of things — through the interplay of Zen and science, poetry and ecology — in her life and writing.
Jane Hirshfield is the author of books of poetry, including The Beauty, Come, Thief, and most recently, Ledger, with selections read this hour. She’s also written two books of essays: Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Jane Hirshfield — The Fullness of Things." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
Eugene Peterson — Answering God
[Unedited] Eugene Peterson with Krista Tippett
Mary Oliver — “I got saved by the beauty of the world.”
[Unedited] Mary Oliver with Krista Tippett
BONUS: An Invitation from Pádraig and Krista
J. Drew Lanham – Pathfinding Through the Improbable
[Unedited] J. Drew Lanham with Krista Tippett
[Unedited] Kate DiCamillo with Krista Tippett
Mario Livio — Mathematics, Mystery, and the Universe
[Unedited] Mario Livio with Krista Tippett
“Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Gal Beckerman — How Newness Enters the World
[Unedited] Gal Beckerman with Krista Tippett
Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman — Love Your Enemies? (Really?)
[Unedited] Sharon Salzberg and Robert Thurman with Krista Tippett
John O'Donohue – The Inner Landscape of Beauty
[Unedited] John O'Donohue with Krista Tippett
Trabian Shorters – A Cognitive Skill to Magnify Humanity
[Unedited] Trabian Shorters with Krista Tippett
Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Brother Thay
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney
Selected Shorts
This American Life
The Frank Skinner Show
Judge John Hodgman