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.
Find the transcript for this show at onbeing.org.
Serene Jones — Grace in a Fractured World
[Unedited] Serene Jones with Krista Tippett
Michael Longley — The Vitality of Ordinary Things
[Unedited] Michael Longley with Krista Tippett
[Unedited] Christine Runyan with Krista Tippett
Naomi Shihab Nye — “Before You Know Kindness As the Deepest Thing Inside...”
[Unedited] Naomi Shihab Nye with Krista Tippett
The Question “Who Am I,” and Movies We Love
Ariel Burger — Be a Blessing
[Extended] Ariel Burger with Krista Tippett
Alain de Botton — The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships
[Unedited] Alain de Botton with Krista Tippett
Living the Questions — What's our communal equivalent of rubbing each other's feet?
The Soul in Depression
[Unedited] Andrew Solomon with Krista Tippett
[Unedited] Anita Barrows with Krista Tippett
[Unedited] Parker Palmer with Krista Tippett
J. Drew Lanham reads his poem “Love for a Song”
J. Drew Lanham reads from his book.
Katherine May Reads from 'Wintering'
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