Belonging to the Art of Attention: Two Poets on the Art of Being Here
Their writing finds belonging through compassion and the shared experience of being fully alive—with presence, humility, and attentiveness. These poems lead us beyond accumulated wisdom and toward our fullest arrival in the present moment.
Jane Hirshfield is an acclaimed American poet, essayist, translator, and Zen practitioner, recognized for her profound contributions to contemporary poetry and literature. Hirshfield has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), the Academy of American Poets Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement (2004), and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship (2005). In 2019, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2024, she became the first English-language writer and first woman to receive the Zhongkun International Poetry Award in China. Her poetry has been praised for its ethical awareness, clarity, and metaphysical depth.
Colleen Busch's debut collection, SMOLDER, won Ex Ophidia Press's Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Contest and published SMOLDER in July. Colleen Busch is the author of Fire Monks: Zen Mind Meets Wildfire- a work of nonfiction selected by Publisher’s Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, and Barnes & Noble as a best book of the year. Her poetry has appeared in Poet Lore, Willow Springs, Sycamore Review, New Orleans Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Belleview Literary Review. She is a lay-ordained Zen practitioner and currently serve as president of the Berkeley Zen Center.
In collaboration with the Marin Poetry Center