The following version of this poem was used to create this guide: Hirshfield, Jane. “My Life Was the Size of My Life.” The Beauty (Knopf, 2015).

Note that all parenthetical citations refer to the line number from which the quotation is taken.

Jane Hirshfield is an acclaimed poet, essayist, and practitioner of Soto Zen Buddhism. Her written work is known for emphasizing attentive presence and ecological and ethical awareness. She often deals with themes of nature, philosophical meditations, and what is left unseen or unsaid. In her poem “My Life Was the Size of My Life,” Hirshfield’s speaker considers their own life from a distance so as to gain perspective. This free verse poem relies on repetition and a conversational tone to convey the spectrum of the speaker’s experience. Ultimately, the speaker investigates the nature of life using their own self as a mode of perception.