Jack Hirschman – författare

In the activist verse of this poetic warrior, always committed, the actual world is never out of mind, even in his most intimate poems. Kabbalist, populist, and communist, Hirschman has published over sixty books of his own poetry, and this representative selection is a cross-section of his poetic output, spanning many years and mutations. When he reads aloud, the words take fire, and on the page they crackle and spark. "Hirschman is tender but tough, with a steel fist in his velvet glove." -San Francisco Chronicle "What this poet brings to us, beyond ideology, is the simple truth that we already know and so immediately recognize: we have to stop hating each other, killing each other, raping each other, and start loving each other." -Poet News "...one of the left's most prolific and consistent poetic voices." -Contemporary Poets "For a poet as prolific as Jack Hirschman, the 224 pages of his new City Lights book Front Lines -- a selected poems covering a half-century of work from 1952 to 2001 -- gives us only a fraction of his gargantuan output over that long, productive arc. (With over one hundred books of original work and translations at last count.)With a deft touch, he has lifted many of the best poems from these years, giving us a consolidated, if not a "best of" Hirschman reader, in which the turning of each page causes something of a small epiphany, if not outright cause for celebration." -Asheville Poetry Review "The publication of Front Lines ...serves as an appropriate celebration of Jack Hirschman's 70th birthday and his staying power as a poet of conscience." -Bloomsbury Review Jack Hirschman is a San Francisco poet, translator and editor. His powerfully eloquent voice set the tone for political poetry in this country many years ago. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, plus some forty-five translations from a half a dozen languages, as well the editor of anthologies and journals.

Open Gate is the first bilingual volume of Haitian Creole poetry published in English. Seven years in the making, this anthology is the result of the dedication of its editors and translators, Paul Laraque, Jack Hirschman and the Haitian poet Boadiba, as well as Max Manigat, one of the first teachers of Creole on the university level who was an invaluable advisor.The editors focus on contemporary Creole poetry that reflects the struggle for human rights in Haiti. The book is divided into three sections: Pioneers of Modern Haitian Creole poetry, beginning with the founder of modern Haitian Creole literature, Felix Morisseu-Leroy (19131998); the flowering of Haitian poetry as represented by the literary movement, ""Society of Butterflies,"" some of whose members were jailed or exiled by the bloody Duvalier dictatorship; and the New Generation featuring primrily those poets in the Diaspora whose work has been published in the last 15 years.

The fourth volume of the San Francisco Poet Laureate Series, All That's Left is a powerful collection of poems for social justice by street-poet-turned- laureate Jack Hirschman. The volume opens with Hirschman's autobiographical inaugural address, which vividly traces his career as poet, translator, and agitator. Included are several of Hirschman's earlier poems, marking successive stages of his poetic development. The poems following the address were composed during his tenure as poet laureate, covering contemporary outrages like post-Katrina New Orleans and the Virginia Tech tragedy, paying homage to fallen poetic comrades like Jack Kerouac and Bob Kaufman, and exploring more personal dimensions of love.