The Art of Noticing – and Appreciating – Our Dizzying World

“Poetry is the attempt to understand fully what is real, what is present, what is imaginable, what is feelable, and how can I loosen the grip of what I already know to find some new, changed relationship,” the poet Jane Hirshfield tells me. Through poetry, she says, “I know something new and I have been changed.”

Hirshfield is the awardwinning author of many books of poetry and two illuminating essay collections about what poetry does to us and in the world“Nine GatesEntering the Mind of Poetry () ” and “Ten WindowsHow Great Poems Transform the World () .” Her book “Ledger () ” is one I gift to people most often. Hirshfield’s true talent as a poet is her singular ability to imbue the ordinary, the invisible, the forgotten with a sense of majesty and wonder. Her work is littered with lines that force you to stop, to slow down, to notice what you might have missed or overlooked.

Hirshfield’s work also raises some profound questions: What does it mean to grapple with our complicity in the climate crisis? Where does the self end and the rest of the world begin? How do we learn to desire what we previously dreaded or despised?

This is one of those conversations that is hard to describe in words. But it was truly a delight for me to be a part of. And I think you’ll enjoy it too.

Mentioned:

The Iliad () by Homer

The Odyssey () by Homer

Gilgamesh ()

The Beauty () by Jane Hirshfield

How Emotions Are Made () by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Flow () by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Living with a Wild God () by Barbara Ehrenreich

The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution () by C.P. Snow

Book recommendations:

Metaphors We Live By () by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Less Than One () by Joseph Brodsky

The Fire Next Time () by James Baldwin

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezrakleinpodcast () , and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at () .

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