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  • Published: 11 December 2013
  • ISBN: 9780307761989
  • Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96
Categories:

Wild Gratitude





An excerpt from the poem, Wild Gratitude: 

"Tonight when I knelt down next to our cat, Zooey,
And put my fingers into her clean cat's mouth,
And rubbed her swollen belly that will never know kittens,
And watched her wriggle onto her side, pawing the air,
And listened to her solemn little squeals of delight,
I was thinking about the poet, Christopher Smart,
Who wanted to kneel down and pray without ceasing
In everyone of the splintered London streets,

And was locked away in the madhouse at St. Luke's
With his sad religious mania, and his wild gratitude,
And his grave prayers for the other lunatics,
And his great love for his speckled cat, Jeoffry.
All day today—August 13, 1983—I remembered how
Christopher Smart blessed this same day in August, 1759,
For its calm bravery and ordinary good conscience." 

  • Published: 11 December 2013
  • ISBN: 9780307761989
  • Imprint: RH US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 96
Categories:

About the author

Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch has published five previous books of poems:
FOR THE SLEEPWALKERS (1981), WILD GRATITUDE
(1986), which won the National Book
Critics Circle Award, THE NIGHT PARADE (1989),
EARTHLY MEASURES (1994), and ON LOVE (1998).
He has also written three prose books, including HOW TO
READ A POEM AND FALL IN LOVE WITH POETRY
(1999), a national bestseller, and THE DEMON AND THE
ANGEL: SEARCHING FOR THE SOURCE OF
ARTISTIC INSPIRATION (2002). A frequent contributor
to leading magazines and periodicals, including THE NEW
YORKER, DOUBLETAKE, and AMERICAN POETRY
REVIEW, he also writes the Poet's Choice column for the
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD. He has received
the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American
Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and a
MacArthur Fellowship. He teaches at the University of
Houston.

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