100 Poems to Break Your Heart

February 1, 2021
Who will reach for this assemblage of poems meant to break our hearts? Those who know that solace can be found in poetry and its assurance that one is not alone in facing heartbreak and loss, which is visited upon us in new and crushing ways in the time of COVID-19. Another draw is Hirsch himself, of course, a consummate poet (his most recent collection is Stranger by Night, 2020) all-too fluent in grief, whose radiant books about poetry, among them Poet's Choice (2006), have guided readers to a deeper appreciation for this endlessly surprising and affecting literary form. Each profoundly arresting poem is accompanied by a succinct yet passionate essay masterfully combining biography and commentary. Hirsch has selected lyrics confronting sorrow engendered by the death of a loved one, war, genocide, exile, violence, racism, and other crimes against humanity. Proceeding chronologically from the late nineteenth century to the present and encompassing translated works, Hirsch's darkly illuminating anthology includes Anna Ahkmatova, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nazim Hikmet, Garret Hongo, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, Czeslaw Milosz, Adrienne Rich, Patricia Smith, Natasha Trethewey, and C�sar Vallejo. Mary Oliver crystallizes Hirsch's vision and mission: "I tell you this / to break your heart, / by which I mean only / that it break open and never close again / to the rest of the world."

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