Description
A Zen Luminaries conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield about writing, Zen, and creativity, hosted by Jon Jospeh & Friends. On writing, she says: A poem is a field of discovery. It is not the record of something I already know. It is the record of exploration for alchemical transformation or for a pot a rice. The cooking pot is us.
Summary
Jane Hirshfield is one of America’s leading poetic voices. She has published ten volumes of poetry, including her latest, The Asking: New and Selected Poems, as well as several collections of essays and translations that highlight women’s writing throughout the ages. For a half century, Zen Buddhist practice has been a central stream in Jane’s life and work.
From her book, The Asking – New and Selected Poems:
I take in the world through image, phrase and metaphor. Poems are a hybrid between the narrative of fiction, the plot line of music, orchestrating the feelings so gorgeously, and paintings which you take in all at once and which gradually change you.
A poem is a field of discovery. It is not the record of something I already know. It is the record of exploration for alchemical transformation or for a pot a rice. The cooking pot is us.
Once in a dream someone asked me, “Why do you write?” I responded, “Because everything is alive.”
I feel this tremendous gratitude for being alive. I have a great debt to this extraordinary existence in which I am able to be part of in this brief lifetime. How lucky it is to breathe in this air, to see this mountain.
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