Edward Hirsch taught everyone to love and appreciate poetry to its fullest potential. Born in Chicago on January 20, 1950, he began writing at a young age and began his traditional formal writing style with a little creative flair. He strengthened American poetry and gave a different vision to literary criticism. Like any other eight-year-old, Hirsch loved sports, but he also fell in love with poetry. She found and read a copy of “Spellbound” by Emily Brontë and loved it. As a child he didn't read much and didn't like it much, but thanks to his mother's persuasion with books about sports, he read. Hirsch's grandfather helped develop his poetic skills. His grandfather wrote poetry, but his was very unconventional because he wrote in Hebrew from right to left making it impossible for Hirsch to read them. His grandfather quoted Shakespeare and Keats to him as a child without ever identifying them (Barker 213-214). to be sentimental to bear witness to life without flinching and, above all, to isolate and preserve those details of our existence so often overlooked, so easily forgotten, so essential to our souls'” (Edward Hirsch Poetry Foundation 1). Hirsch's poetry was praised from the beginning. His first book of poetry was For the Sleepwalkers, written in 1981, which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from the New York University. This was a great inaugural book that catapulted Hirsch's writings. Just five years later, his second book of poetry, Wild Gratitude, was published, winning... mid-card... at York City. He does not teach in a formal setting such as a classroom, but his books and poems continue to teach poetry. He is a member of the Education Advisory Board of the Guggenheim Foundation, the John Simon Gugenheim Memorial Foundation of which he is president, and a member of the Advisory Board of the American Poetry and Literary Project. He continues to write poetry with his latest volume of poetry published in 2010, The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems 1972-2010.Works CitedBarker, Brian. “About Edward Hirsch.” Vomeri 33.1 (2007): 213. MasterFILE Premier. Web.12 February 2014."Edward Hirsch."Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 February 2014. "Edward Hirsch." Poet.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. 12 February 2014.Hirsch, The Biography of Edward. "The Biography of Edward Hirsch." Poemhunter.com. Np, nd Web. 12 February. 2014.