"Omen" is an elegy for Hirsch's close friend Dennis Turner, and the poem draws on a variety of autobiographical themes. Research Hirsch's biographical details on the Web and in articles such as Peter Szatmary's "Poetic Genius," published in the April 1999 edition of Biblio. Speculate on the variety of details from Hirsch's personal life that come out in "Omen." How do these details find their way, directly or indirectly, into the poem?

Hirsch is a prominent critic of poetry, and he has written a variety of influential scholarly works. Read one of these works, such as How to Read a Book: And Fall in Love with Poetry (1999) or Responsive Reading (1999), and discuss its relationship to "Omen." How can you apply the themes of the book you have chosen to Hirsch's elegy? Discuss how you think Hirsch might analyze his own poem.

Research the...