Jane Hirshfield has authored many books and has been long-listed for the National Book Award. She’s also a socially-conscious practitioner of Zen Buddhism, translator of Japanese poetry, and author of a book about Basho, the haiku master. The title of her latest collection, Ledger, suggests an accounting of consequences. The poems, are precise, deliberate, and deliver a punch, but never waver from her deeply contemplative perspective. There’s not a wasted word in the book. Here’s an insightful interview in which she describes how she came to write Ledger: