Jack Hirschman (1933-2021)
[I have added a bit to the original post, touching on his cultural fame in Italy and elsewhere in Europe.]
Legend, example, true poet to the end.
For those of you who don’t know, JH was a legend in his Bay Area home turf, but hardly as well known in national poetry circles as he should have been. His unapologetic Marxism (much of whose Stalinist tinge I strongly disagreed with and had some back and forth about with him a few years ago) had much to do with that, just as Muriel Rukeyser’s ridiculously relative obscurity has much to do with the same.
But in Europe he is much better known. In fact, in Italy he is nothing less than a cultural hero and legend.
(You can find a number of his late Arcanes, published exclusively at Dispatches, by going to the Simon Fraser University Online Archives page for Dispatches from the Poetry Wars.)
Vale American poet Jack Hirschman (1933-2021), activist and author of over 50 books and essays, one of his major wo4ks being ‘The Arcanes’.
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