Front Lines

by Jack Hirschman

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780872864009
Publisher:	City Lights Books
Publication date:	08/01/2002
Series:	City Lights Pocket Poets Series , #55
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 6.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Jack Hirschman (b. December 13, 1933, in New York, NY) is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and is the city's present poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited the Artuad Anthology.

Table of Contents

	Guerrillas	1
	For Dylan Thomas	2
	Calligraph	4
	Tornado	5
	W.C. Fields	6
	Ikon	7
	A Correspondence of Americans	10
	2 x 4	16
	Three	18
	Four	19
	Five	20
	In Memoriam Ernest Hemingway	21
	The Burning of Los Angeles	23
	Franz Kline	27
	Jackson Pollock	29
	Dantesque	33
	The Murder of Giordano Bruno	35
	Balaban	47
	Hymn	49
	Fugue	50
	Paris	52
	El	53
	Ghetto	54
	Ray Charles	58
	The Garden	60
	Europe	62
	London	64
	Point Lobos	66
	Venice	70
	Headlands	73
	XLEB	78
	Soul of a Pencil	80
	A Village Poem	83
	Book	85
	Running Poem	89
	Vimba	91
	The Sacrificial Lamb	93
	"Let the Railsplitter Awake"	95
	Worker's Poem	97
	The International Hotel	98
	Nicaragua	99
	Dope	101
	NY, NY	103
	Vladimir Mayakovsky	105
	One Night	107
	Spirals	109
	Mother	112
	Gardenia	117
	This Neruda Earth	118
	Haiti	119
	Ezra Dog	121
	The Unnameable	126
	Home	129
	The Night	133
	July 4th Eve, 1990	136
	October 11, 1990	137
	Nellie	138
	Human Interlude	140
	In Memoriam Ray Thompson (1943-1990)	142
	Jesse	144
	To Julian Beck	147
	The Old Woman	149
	Dancing Dave: In Memoriam David Bronk, Poet	150
	On a Line by Whitman	152
	When We Tear Tomorrow Open	153
	Day of the Dead	157
	The Crowbar Song	158
	Requiem for the War Dead	160
	Wildebeest	163
	Wanted You To Know It	164
	Variation on a Spiritual	168
	Irish Brogue	169
	On the Death of Willem de Kooning, American Painter	171
	Xilotl	173
	Whatever It's Called	176
	Something Basic	179
	The Recognition #2	181
	The Open Gate	184
	Poem For The Millennium	187
	The Love Poem	190
	The Whole Shot	192
	The Happiness	196
	The Twin Towers Arcane	197

Editorial Reviews

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