The Nine Gates of Poetry

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

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This is the first collection of poetic essays by Jane Hirschfield, winner of the National Endowment for the Arts Award and the Academy of American Poets Award. It is a creative guide for writers and translators, and a handbook for poetry appreciation for the general public. A masterpiece full of brilliance, a poet's discussion of poetry.
This is the first collection of poetic essays by renowned contemporary American poet Jane Hirschfield, and one of her representative works. Beginning with the mind—the source of poetic creation—it explores flow and the focus of the soul, exploring a poetic art that fully expresses the self while remaining open and inclusive, embracing the self within all things, the world, and even the One. It then explores eight distinct aspects: originality, translation, linguistic strategies, oral memory, writing, and the thresholds of life. These eight aspects together constitute the nine gates to the realm of poetry, leading to the poetic world of the soul.

"Poetry is a clarification and amplification of existence," Hirschfield begins. Therefore, when she discusses poetry, she's not just discussing the essence of poetry; she's also discussing the essence of the mind, the essence of perception, and the essence of experience. She illuminates not only the art of poetry but also the art of living: how poetry can awaken us, how we can live sensitively, gracefully, intelligently, passionately, and transparently. Those who can enter the heart of poetry will also be able to delve deeply into life, embracing it rather than alienating it.
All of this isn't purely theoretical deduction, but rather a close reading of specific poets and their works. Here, past and present are seamlessly connected, as are China and the West. Li Bai, Du Fu, Basho, Ono Komachi, Milosz, Dickinson, nameless troubadours, and anonymous singers—in their poetry, in their moments of joy and sorrow, in the moments of their souls opening up, all are united, radiating the same brilliance.
Buddhist and Zen thought, as well as classical Chinese and Japanese poetics, were crucial sources for Hirschfeld's poetics and directly influenced her approach to life. She devoted herself to the study of Zen Buddhism and ultimately converted to the Soto school. She was a thorough reader of classical Chinese and Japanese poets such as Li Bai, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Izumi Shikibu, and Basho, and tirelessly translated and introduced them to the English-language world. As a contemporary American poet, she freely navigated these Eastern poets, her perspective, both internal and external, offering us a new perspective and approach.
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The third book in the series "Paper Creation·Poetry Lesson" uses a Japanese specialty paper with a slightly translucent texture to create a multi-layered three-dimensional visual experience.
The text is carefully formatted based on the reader's reading experience.
The artist praised the use of paper and the resulting design, believing it complemented his creative content perfectly. In particular, the design's "mixed temperament of diverse places and cultures" alludes to the artist's self-proclaimed belief that "he is not a poet of a single place or time, but rather a poet who traverses different territories and eras, participating in and learning from various conversations."
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Jane Hirschfeld dares to write about the mysteries of art, approaching them in a way that feels perfectly natural to me: plain, reverent, and intelligent. She respects her subject matter, giving due weight to both past masters and her own intuition. These essays possess the richness of a journal and the brilliance of a brilliant lecture, ultimately resulting in a rare masterpiece.
—Robert Pinsky, U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

These essays are wide-ranging and fearless. Their foundation—not simply poetry—is thought, wit, focus, and art. If you need it, here you can find strength at the edge and calm at the center.
-- Gary Snyder, a member of the Academy of American Poets and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, describes the art, technique, and action of writing poetry with the precision of a surgeon and the sensibility of a chef, article by article... These essays are both ambitious (in the chapter "Writing and the Liminality of Life," they freely move from the fourteenth-century Japanese poet Ono Komachi to Milosz to Dickinson to Whitman) and confident and clear.
—Village Voice
Rooted in the classics of both East and West, Hirschfield offers a profound and timely account of our relationship to poetry, to the world, and vice versa.
—Publishers Weekly
The quiet restraint in these writings—poetry as well as prose—is captivating. Highly recommended.
—Library Journal
In these brilliant essays, Hirschfield proves that, like all good poets, she is also a gifted reader. The good news is that this illuminating book, as Hirschfield intended, strengthens our response to poetry, and by extension, our response to life.
——Booklist

2023-11-01

商务印书馆

Paper Creations

308

9787100226943