Edward Hirsch is perhaps best known for the runaway bestseller, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999). This accessible guide to the world of poetry won the hearts of poets and non-poets alike and catapulted Hirsch into the spotlight.
Born in Chicago in 1950, he attended Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in folklore (the residue of which we find in his contemporary takes on classic myths). He is also the author of six collections of poetry, including Wild Gratitude (1987), which garnered him a National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” award and of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He lives in New York City where he is the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.