Poetry June 2008 Atlantic Monthly

by Jane Hirshfield

Vinegar and Oil

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Wrong solitude vinegars the soul,
right solitude oils it.

How fragile we are, between the few good moments.

Coming and going unfinished,
puzzled by fate,

like the half-carved relief
of a fallen donkey, above a church door in Finland.

Jane Hirschfield's 2006 collection, After, was a finalist for England's T.S. Eliot Prize. She received an Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets in 2004.

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From the Archives

March 2006

Pyracantha and Plum

From Atlantic Unbound

Interviews: "Some Place Not Yet Known"

(September 18, 1997)
Jane Hirshfield discusses the lives of poetry—public and private, sensual and spiritual.

The Bell Zygmunt

(March 2004)
A poem by Jane Hirshfield. [with audio]


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