"100 Poems to Break Your Heart" (Edward Hirsch)

TITLE: 100 Poems to Break Your Heart
AUTHOR: Edward Hirsch
PUBLISHER: Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021, (512 pages).

"We live in distracting times," writes one of the most popular poets in our modern era. In the midst of widespread superficiality, we need a more down-to-earth reality. Driven by an overwhelming rush for success, we often do not spend time licking our wounds of failure, reflecting on setbacks, or grieving over losses. Busyness could be a convenient coverup for emotional weakness or vulnerability. The difference between prose and poetry is quite well-known. Prose tends to be relatively direct while poetry requires time to digest. It also takes on a more pragmatic mode rather than imaginative; information-driven vs experience-led; utilitarian vs expressiveness; and so on. Poetry on the other hand gives one the freedom to express our feelings that allows us to use a variety of literary art such as art, music, or various methods of illumination. There is more freedom of expression, something that adequately sways with the feelings of the poet. Poet Edward Hirsch gives us a powerful collection of poems from various contributors, both past and present. He writes this book of poems as a way to invite us into a world of how many people have expressed their hurts, pains, and struggles. People from the past such as William Wordsworth who mourns his daughter's death with a poem "Surprised by Joy" or Alfred Lord Tennyson's "In Memoriam" that describes his distress over the passing of a dear friend. People in the present such as Mary Oliver who mourns the loss of loons due to lead poisoning in New England where her poem "Lead" laments the failure to protect the environment we live in. Anne Sexton's "Wanting to Die" is a counsel for a friend wanting to commit suicide. Muriel Rukeyser's "Poem" is an anti-war cry. Anya Krogovoy Silver's "Persimmon" is a mindful meandering over fruit in the midst of cancer. Michael Collier's "An Individual History" expresses the struggles and pain of seeing one's grandmother going through a potpourri of medication and drug side-effects. Philip Schultz's "Failure" expresses a humiliating situation where one needs to borrow money from his father's debtor to pay for his father's funeral. 

There are poems of faith from different walks of life, expressed in many different people groups. Sadness over death, environmental disasters, famine, mortality, sicknesses, wars, unrequited love, and many more. The range of human emotions is truly astounding. Hirsch writes as a gentle guide, explaining how the poems' twists and turns in a clear way that brings up the essence of the most deeply held emotions by the poet. Without Hirsch's explanations, I would have missed out a significant chunk of the poetry's meaning. The chapters are arranged mostly chronologically based on the time the poem was written. 

My Thoughts

This book requires time to digest. It is best to read one chapter at a time, though one could start any chapter. It is important to read the Introduction to get a map of what the book is about. It also shows readers how the author intends to do with the rest of the book. I would suggest staying with Hirsch at least in the first five or ten chapters so that one gets a hang of Hirsch's framework. Having done that, feel free to reference any chapter at any time.

The title of the book is intriguing, and that was one of the first reasons why I was attracted to this book. Wow. Is there any way to break the heart of even the most stoic minds or stern hearts? If there is, I sure would like to know or read about it. If the title had drawn me to the book, the poems drew me even deeper into the heart of the poems. When one sees the raw emotions expressed by the poet, there is a good chance that one's heart would break. The 100 poems selected would affect us in different ways, some more others less. Given the scope of coverage, there will be at least one that would touch our heart, if not break it. Regardless of gender, race, religion, or people groups, this book speaks to our common shared humanity, that we are all human, that we all live in a broken world, that we are all crying out for comfort, peace, and understanding. If any part of the book could nudge any of these closer to our hearts, it would have worth every cent.

EDWARD HIRSCH is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. A MacArthur fellow, he has published ten books of poems and six books of prose. He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for literature. He serves as president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and lives in Brooklyn.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5.

conrade

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This book has been provided courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and NetGalley without requiring a positive review. All opinions offered above are mine unless otherwise stated or implied.