Hirshfield

"Possibility: An Assay"

"To Opinion: An Assay"

"Termites: An Assay"

"Poe: An Assay"

"'To': An Assay"

"To Judgment: An Assay"

In a Marin Independent Journal article dated 02/22/2006, "The Zen Poet of Mill Valley," Paul Liberatore lets Hirshfield explain how assays differ from another kind of poem she calls a "pebble."

Liberatore's article says:

Her gentle affection for people and everyday things is evident in her work, collected in this book as poems, short pieces she calls "pebbles" and longer "assays."

Hirshfield is a horsewoman with an Arabian gelding she keeps at Muir Beach. Here's an example of a pebble, titled "Sentence," that refers to a horse:

"The body of a starving horse cannot forget the size it was born to."

"The pebbles are not riddles or jokes, but they're like riddles or jokes in that they put something forward and it isn't finished until the person hearing it or taking it in puts two and two together," she explained. "They aren't finished except in the experience of taking them in."

The assays, taken from what most people know as a mining term, "are a meandering way of exploring something's nature," she said. "One (a pebble) is a like a flashbulb and the other (an assay) is a long look around."

As an aside, I wish I had a name like "Liberatore." However, knowing my luck, if I did, it would be something like, "Nochildleftbehindatore." Or "Martin-atore."