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On Calligraphic Perception: A Conversation with Jane Hirshfield
In an interview begun in 2012, when being honored with the Donald
Hall-Jane Kenyon Award in American Poetry, Jane Hirshfield shares her
experiential journey towards "the quick brushstroke of singular
perception" for which her poems have come to be known. Acknowledging the
grace of her gift she says, "I never take for granted that I'll be able
to write. There's no acorn stash of ideas in my desk drawer. There's
only the wanting to know my life through writing, a wish felt sometimes
as desire, sometimes as desperation."
