Earthly Measures: Poems

These are poems of immense wonder and rigor. To say that they are religious poems is only to recognize their grandeur and generosity, and their heart-breaking longing.

-Patricia Hampl, The New York Times Book Review

With Earthly Measures, Edward Hirsch breaks through the ring of fire and captures his Muse. The voice is now uncannily his own; uncanny because we believe we have heard it before, yet the accents are unearthly and utterly fresh. Like his poem on Art Pepper, this voice also hears the chords of Stevens and Celan, but knows that ‘play solo means going on alone, improvising.’

-Harold Bloom

Edward Hirsch is one of the finest poets we have! He has wonderful gifts to offer us: a strong, touching narrative voice; alert, mindful eye; the moral energy that informs his manner of writing and his choice of subjects; a desire to reach his readers, bring them into the world he observes, creates.

-Robert Coles

I can’t think of any contemporary whose poems have such an unfeigned urgency of feeling. At the same time, Hirsch’s poems have a considered richness in them, and greatly repay rereading.

-Richard Wilbur