Conversation with poet Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch is a major American poet, advocate for the art of poetry, and president of the Guggenheim Foundation. His new memoir is My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy (2025).


His 1999 book, How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry, was a national bestseller.

7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 4, 2025
Page Hall - University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203

Free and open to the public. Books will be available. A signing will follow the conversation.

In its review of My Childhood in Pieces, Kirkus Reviews said, “Hirsch channels the voices and personalities of his Chicagoland Jewish childhood to create a memoir composed of jokes and short vignettes, one setup-and-punchline after another… sometimes silly, sometimes off-color, often Yiddish-flavored, with a penchant for puns and dad jokes that never quits…. A unique recreation of a great life in a largely vanished world.”

More about this event at https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/edwardhirsch

Cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Northeastern New York.

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• Next Thursday, 11th September, 04:30 pm, Conversation with Keach Hagey, reporter and author in Albany
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