Jane Hirshfield's, The Heart of Haiku, is given a well deserved mention in an article by Dwight Garner in today's New York Times on Kindle Singles. A Kindle Single* is a new form that has found its readers: longer than an essay and shorter than a book, the Single is something that can usually be read in one sitting and savored forever -- at least, that's the case in Hirshfield's work on the poet Basho and the form he is famous for, the Haiku.
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*Kindle singles and e-books can be read on your computer; your smart phone; or other e-readers. You can download the free application software on Amazon.
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Here's my recommendation from the Amazon site:
I first encountered Jane Hirshfield's poetry in The Atlantic; it was June of 1996 that I read "Three Foxes by the Edge of the Field at Twilight" on my computer and then heard her reading her poem on RealAudio -- the technology was new -- what a joy to hear a poem read by the poet in your own home! I was entranced, and thus began my journey. I found The Lives of the Heart: Poems and fell in love with her work. The true test of a poet's strength, for me, is if lines of their poetry come back to me unbidden -- I know, then, that the poetry has taken root. Hirshfield's poetry can make that claim. I have purchased several copies of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry to hand out to friends; it is a book that I consider essential. We took turns reading poems from Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women at the bedside of a loved one; those poems, those ancient voices, provided vessels for our grief. I will always be grateful that they were so thoughtfully woven together and made available in this anthology.
The essay on Basho is a gift of thought about form. There is nothing to do but accept the gift and bow to the generosity. It is wonderful.
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Hirshfield priced The Heart of Haiku at 99 cents -- a gift to the reader -- you owe it to yourself to buy one and send one to everyone you know.
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Hirshfield's newest book of poems, Come, Thief is available at Amazon.
Two of her poems are in the current issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin: