I rang the bellto the pastand the owner let me inso I could climbseven stepsand stand in the doorwayof a narrownessthat was once my roomon the second floorof a split-level houseon the cornerof a suburban developmentin the villageof my adolescenceand time bent me backto that fitful nightwhen I tried to scalethe rusty stairsof a freight train rollingout of control in the yardso I could set the brakesand stop the runawaydead in his tracksbut insteadI pulled a bookcasedown on my bodyand woke upstartledto find my parentsfrightened in the hallwayand my books—or was it my future?—scattered on the floor.
I Rang the Bell
Edward Hirsch
Feature Date
- May 9, 2020
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Copyright © 2019 by Edward Hirsch
Poem appears in “Stranger by Night” (Knopf)
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Photo:
Michael Lionstar
Michael Lionstar
Edward Hirsch’s tenth book of poems, Stranger by Night, was published by Knopf in 2020.
He is a celebrated poet and peerless advocate for poetry. He was born in Chicago in 1950—his accent makes it impossible for him to hide his origins—and educated at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in Folklore. His devotion to poetry is lifelong.
He has received numerous awards and fellowships, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a Pablo Neruda Presidential Medal of Honor, the Prix de Rome, and an Academy of Arts and Letters Award. In 2008, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Summer 2019
Amherst, Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
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