The Task You never expected to spend so many hours staring down an empty sheet of lined paper in the harsh inner light of an all-night diner, ruining your heart over mug after mug of bitter coffee and reading Meister Eckhart or Saint John of the Cross or some other mystic of nothingness in a brightly colored booth next to a window looking out at a deserted off-ramp or unfinished bridge or garishly lit parking lot backing up on Detroit or Houston or some other city forsaken at three a.m. with loners and insomniacs facing the darkness of an interminable night that stretched into months and years. Credit: Copyright © 2018 Edward Hirsch.

The task:

" ... ruining your heart
over mug after mug
of bitter coffee
and reading Meister Eckhart
or Saint John of the Cross
or some other mystic
of nothingness ..."

- #EdwardHirsch

Edward Hirsch, The Art of Poetry No. 110 “It’s part of your job, as a poet, to write out of experience. To name what matters to you. You’ve only got one life to draw on.”

“I don’t think that poetry leads to self-destructiveness. It’s life that gets people there.”

—Edward Hirsch

#booksky #poetry #interview
#parisreview #edwardhirsch

www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7...

THE TASK
by #EdwardHirsch

You never expected
to spend so many hours
staring down an empty sheet
of lined paper
in the harsh inner light
of an all-night diner,
ruining your heart
over mug after mug
of bitter coffee
and reading Meister Eckhart
or Saint John of the Cross

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,
a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.

- #EdwardHirsch, 'I'm Going to Start Living Like a Mystic'

I'M GOING TO START LIVING LIKE A MYSTIC
By #EdwardHirsch

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater
and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall.

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field,
each a station in a pilgrimage—silent, pondering.

Q+A after our screening of After: Poetry Destroys Silence with Janet R. Kirchheimer #gezaroehrig #edwardHirsch #evafogelman
Thank you Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan for hosting the screening.

#everyone #jewishhistory #JewishLivesMatter #jewish #poetry #poetrylovers #marlenemeyersonjcc

THE TASK You never expected to spend so many hours staring down an empty sheet of lined paper in the harsh inner light of an all-night diner, ruining your heart over mug after mug of bitter coffee and reading Meister Eckhart or Saint John of the Cross or some other mystic of nothingness in a brightly colored booth next to a window looking out at a deserted off-ramp or unfinished bridge or garishly lit parking lot backing up on Detroit or Houston or some other city forsaken at three a.m. with loners and insomniacs facing the darkness of an interminable night that stretched into months and years. - Edward Hirsch.

The task:

" ... ruining your heart
over mug after mug
of bitter coffee
and reading #MeisterEckhart
or Saint #JohnoftheCross
or some other mystic
of nothingness ..."

- #EdwardHirsch