Hirshfield, Jane: The Asking

Knopf, paperback Publication Date: August 19, 2025 Publisher Marketing: Now in paperback, the long-awaited new and selected collection by the author of "some of the most important poetry in the world today" (The New York Times Magazine), assaying the ranges of our shared and borrowed lives In an era of algorithm, assertion, silo, and induced distraction, Jane Hirshfield's poems bring a much-needed awakening response, actively countering narrowness. The Asking takes its title from the close of one of its thirty-one new poems: " don't despair of this falling world, not yet / didn't it give you the asking." Interrogating language and life, pondering beauty amid bewilderment and transcendence amid transience, Hirshfield offers a signature investigation of the conditions, contradictions, uncertainties, and astonishments that shape our existence. A leading advocate for the biosphere and the alliance of science and imagination, she brings to both inner and outer quandaries an abiding compass: