And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again by Ilan Stavans

First published in San Francisco Chronicle (March 23, 2020).ĬMK: It's beautiful, actually, hearing you read it. From And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again, published by Restless Books. Jane Hirshfield: “Today When I Could Do Nothing.” © 2020 Jane Hirshfield. It could have not have found again its nest. Moving steadily because that is what it could do. It must have come in with the morning paper,Ī morning paper is still an essential service. The title of the poem is, 'Today When I Could Do Nothing.' Jane Hershfield is an American writer, and she wrote this poem in Mill Valley, California. We're all having the same fears and in similar dreams and similar reactions to nature and silence.Ĭharles Monroe-Kane: It makes me think about one of the people in your book - the American poet Jane Hirshfield. Does it matter? Should it last? Is it better to become more patriotic, more nationalistic, to close the borders, to build big walls, to cut away from our neighbors, to be only for ourselves?Īnd ironically, it is the pandemic that has made us truly, truly global. Ilan Stavans: What strikes me about this pandemic is that it comes just as we were having this ferocious debate on globalism. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The title of the book comes from the last line of Dante Alighieri's 'Inferno,' where Dante and Virgil emerge from hell to again see the beauty of heaven. So Stavans gathered the work of these writers and poets and artists together in an anthology, 'And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again.' It represents more than 30 countries and a myriad of experiences. He found them to be 'a powerful antidote' to the fear, isolation, and confusion of the times, he told Charles Monroe-Kane of ' To the Best of Our Knowledge.' Mexican-American writer Ilan Stavans was reading a lot of work by his peers as the pandemic took hold.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again by Ilan Stavans