On a stormy night in 2011, poet Edward Hirsch lost his 22-year-old son, Gabriel. After taking a club drug, Gabriel had a seizure and died of cardiac arrest. In life, Gabriel was exciting and energetic, but he also struggled, as his father remembers in his poetry: I look back at the worried parents Wandering through

Over the course of eight collections of poetry, four books of criticism, and the long-running “Poet’s Choice” column in the Washington Post, Edward Hirsch has cemented his reputation as an attentive reader and an elegant poet, capturing what the Romantic poets called “the true voice of feeling.” His many honors include the National Book Critics Circle