Edward Hirsch was born in Chicago in 1950. He is the author of nine poetry collections, including For the Sleepwalkers (1981), winner of the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; Wild Gratitude (1986), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; and, most recently, Gabriel (2014). He has also written over five works of non-fiction, including How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999). Hirsch has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as an Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. In 2008, he was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. A former professor of English at Wayne State University and the University of Houston, Hirsch currently serves as the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and lives in New York City.
Audio Recordings of Edward Hirsch
- As part of Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, Rita Dove and Edward Hirsch reading their poems on October 28, 1986.