Never has there been a book of poems quite like Gabriel, in which a short life, a bewildering death, and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch’s heart to our own, without sentimentality. From its opening lines—“The funeral director opened the coffin / And there he was alone / From the waist up”—Hirsch’s account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief. In propulsive three-line stanzas, he tells the story of how a once unstoppable child, who suffered from various developmental disorders, turned into an irreverent young adult, funny, rebellious, impulsive. Hirsch mixes his tale of Gabriel with the stories of other poets through the centuries who have also lost children, and expresses his feelings through theirs. His landmark poem enters the broad stream of human grief and raises in us the strange hope, even consolation, that we find in the writer’s act of witnessing and transformation. It will be read and reread.
The population of his feelings Could not be governed By the authorities
He had reasons why Reason disobeyed him And voted him out of office
Anxiety His constant companion Made it difficult to rest
Unruly party of one Forget about truces or compromises The barricades will be stormed
Every day was an emergency Every day called for another emergency Meeting of the cabinet
In his country There were scenes Of spectacular carnage
Hurricanes welcomed him He adored typhoons and tornadoes Furies unleashed
Houses lifted up And carried to the sea Uncontained uncontainable
Unbolt the doors Fling open the gates Here he comes
Chaotic wind of the gods He was trouble But he was our trouble
EDWARD HIRSCH, a MacArthur Fellow, has published nine previous books of poetry, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems and Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son. He has also published seven books of prose, among them How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, a national bestseller, and 100 Poems to Break Your Heart. He has received numerous prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. A longtime teacher, at Wayne State University and in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, Hirsch is now president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in Brooklyn.
View titles by Edward Hirsch
Never has there been a book of poems quite like Gabriel, in which a short life, a bewildering death, and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch’s heart to our own, without sentimentality. From its opening lines—“The funeral director opened the coffin / And there he was alone / From the waist up”—Hirsch’s account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief. In propulsive three-line stanzas, he tells the story of how a once unstoppable child, who suffered from various developmental disorders, turned into an irreverent young adult, funny, rebellious, impulsive. Hirsch mixes his tale of Gabriel with the stories of other poets through the centuries who have also lost children, and expresses his feelings through theirs. His landmark poem enters the broad stream of human grief and raises in us the strange hope, even consolation, that we find in the writer’s act of witnessing and transformation. It will be read and reread.
Excerpt
The population of his feelings Could not be governed By the authorities
He had reasons why Reason disobeyed him And voted him out of office
Anxiety His constant companion Made it difficult to rest
Unruly party of one Forget about truces or compromises The barricades will be stormed
Every day was an emergency Every day called for another emergency Meeting of the cabinet
In his country There were scenes Of spectacular carnage
Hurricanes welcomed him He adored typhoons and tornadoes Furies unleashed
Houses lifted up And carried to the sea Uncontained uncontainable
Unbolt the doors Fling open the gates Here he comes
Chaotic wind of the gods He was trouble But he was our trouble
EDWARD HIRSCH, a MacArthur Fellow, has published nine previous books of poetry, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems and Gabriel: A Poem, a book-length elegy for his son. He has also published seven books of prose, among them How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, a national bestseller, and 100 Poems to Break Your Heart. He has received numerous prizes, including the National Book Critics Circle Award. A longtime teacher, at Wayne State University and in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, Hirsch is now president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in Brooklyn.
View titles by Edward Hirsch
