Overview

Wu Wei Eats an Egg introduces fascinating Dutch poet Lucas Hirsch. Alternatingly enraged at and bemused by the 21st century, with its traps of bourgeois excess, addiction, and ""hollow language,"" Hirsch regularly explores the interior self, familial history, and the physical world (in which a tree ""writ[es] a poem"" each day in front of the speaker's window). Both personally expressionistic and socially engaged, Hirsch's poems feel like some combination of Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, and later Franz Wright. There's also an exhilarating mix of reverence and irreverence, popular culture and ""high literature""-something translator Donna Spruijt-Metz captures brilliantly in her English versions of Hirsch's poems. This book offers a unique and exciting enlargement of our understanding of 21st century poetry. -Wayne Miller, author of The End of Childhood What to admire most in Lucas Hirsch's Wu Wei Eats an Egg? It's hard to say since I admire so much. Certainly I was caught first by Hirsch's cool read of contemporary culture: its automation and stresses, the poet's ambivalent investment. Then I thought about emotion, the keen raw precision of the book's evocation of grief-and also, alongside grief, love, joy and wonder, hope, even indifference. I'm struck by the structure of both of the book and its poems and by the poet's controlled restlessness through various forms, so many crucial ideas. But evidently what I like best about this book is that I know I'll come back to it again and again. Wu Wei Eats an Egg is profound, provocative and beautifully done. -Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha

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Lucas Hirsch (1975) has an MA in American Studies from the University of Amsterdam and is the author of five collections of poems: familie gebiedt (De Arbeiderspers, 2006), tastzin (De Arbeiderspers, 2009), Dolhuis (De Arbeiderspers, 2012), Ontsla me van alles wat ik liefheb (De Arbeiderspers, 2015), and Wu wei eet een ei (De Arbeiderspers, 2020). Hirsch published his poems in (several) Dutch, Belgian, and American magazines (Copper Nickel, Pleiades, Literary Review) and performed on stages in The Netherlands, India, Belgium and the USA. In May 2011 and May 2016 Lucas Hirsch was a guest at the Ledig House, international writers residency at Art Omi, New York. Hirsch was a guest teacher at Columbia University in 2012 and 2016. He also developed a poetry game app called Puzzling Poetry. It was presented at the 2016 Buchmesse in Frankfurt. It was followed by a children's edition called Puzzling Poetry Schatkist in 2018. Hirsch teaches creative writing at high schools around The Netherlands and gives workshops to aspiring poets. In December 2017 he was writer in residency at Sangam House - Nrityagram, India. In February 2019 his debut novel: De Weinigen (Of de bankier in de buik van het beest) was published.Hirsch currently is working on his sixth book of poetry Kintsugi (September 2025) and recently (2022) published Shotgun Wedding - a novel about mourning and friendship. Donna Spruijt-Metz's debut poetry collection was General Release from the Beginning of the World (2023, Free Verse Editions). Her second collection is To Phrase a Prayer for Peace' (2025, Wildhouse Press). She is an emeritus psychology professor, MacDowell fellow, rabbinical school drop-out, and former classical flutist. Her chapbooks include Slippery Surfaces, And Haunt the World (with Flower Conroy) and Dear Ghost (winner, Harbor Review Editor's prize). She lived in the Netherlands for 22 years and translates Dutch poetry. Her poems and translations appear or are forthcoming at The Academy of American Poets, and in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. She has taught poetry workshops focusing on Psalms and other biblical texts for Hudson Valley Writer's Center and for Temple Israel of Hollywood. Her collaborative book with Flower Conroy, And Scuttle My Balloon, is forthcoming from Pictureshow Press in 2025. Her website is at donnasmetz.com.

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