Hirsch often finds inspiration in the work of other writers and artists, as is the case with this poem, "A Partial History of My Stupidity." In response to a poem by Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz, in which the author wrote that the history of his stupidity would fill many volumes, Hirsch said he thought, "I could relate to that. But it seemed impossible to write all of [it]. I wrote like volume three, chapter five."
Edward Hirsch was educated at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a PhD in folklore. He is the author of six books of poems: *Lay Back the Darkness* (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003); *On Love* (1998); *Earthly Measures* (1994); *The Night Parade* (1989); *Wild Gratitude* (1986), which received the National Book Critics Circle Award; and *For the Sleepwalkers* (1981), which received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from The Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award. He has been a professor of english at Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Hirsch is currently the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.