"… for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal" she achieves it. She wins Nobel Prize in Literature, the prize regarded as one of the most prestigious ones. And then, her first answer to a journalist is that she hadn’t had coffee yet.
After receiving Noble Prize she was unsure of her feelings about that reward. She told interviewer, Adam Smith, that it is too soon to say something more. It is, of course, a great honor, but her first thought was that she would lose all her friends as they are also literates. She admitted that she is slightly concerned that this honor may have an impact on her daily life with loved ones.
But her life wasn’t always so bright. She was born as a second child in the family – her older sister died before her birth and this event greatly affected poet and her future writing. As a teenager she had anorexia nervosa and for that reason she withdrew from the last year of high school. She referred to this illness as her manifestation of the desire of control, independence and approbation. She also linked anorexia with death of her sister. Although she had to left high school for therapeutic treatment, she still did graduate. However, instead of going to college, she decided to enroll into poetry workshops which helped her to recover. At the age of 23, she won Academy of American Poets Prize. It can be regarded as a starting point for her poetic career.
Now, as a celebrated American poet, Robert Hass, said she is “one of the purest and most accomplished lyric poets now writing”. Although she has never denied connection between her personal life and poetry, she is not regarded as a confessional poet. Her works as considered universal. She often takes inspiration from myths and classical motives. As an illustration, her poem “Persephone the Wanderer” is a modern interpretation of Persephone’s history set in our world. Although each book of her poetry is different and unique, they all broach similar subjects. Louise Glück writes about childhood, family, relationships, love but with regard to loss, betrayal and solitude. She turns to darker side of all this values.
Her poetry is universal. It reveals serious problems that concern most, if not all, people in today’s world. Although her poems are metaphorical, the language is not overcomplicated. Mostly, they are understandable without literary background. So that, they can contribute to our view of the world and its more emotional aspects.
“The Wild Iris” is one of her most accomplished and widely known works as it reveals very deep and personal emotions. It won Pulitzer Prize and Academic Book Award for its originality and ambitiousness. It can be a good point to start exceptional journey with Louise Glück’s poetry.
“Nostos” – Louise Glück
There was an apple tree in the yard -- this would have been forty years ago -- behind, only meadows. Drifts of crocus in the damp grass. I stood at that window: late April. Spring flowers in the neighbor's yard. How many times, really, did the tree flower on my birthday, the exact day, not before, not after? Substitution of the immutable for the shifting, the evolving. Substitution of the image for relentless earth. What do I know of this place, the role of the tree for decades taken by a bonsai, voices rising from the tennis courts -- Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut. As one expects of a lyric poet. We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.
Izabela Bieńkowska
Bibliography:
· Nobel Prize Organization. Accessed on 16.10.2020. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/bio-bibliography/
· Poetry Foundation. Accessed on 16.10.2020. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/louise-gluck
· Jewish Virtual Library. A project of Aice. Accessed on 16.10.2020.
· Saad, N. (08.10.2020) Louise Glück’s reaction to her Nobel Prize win is all of us before coffee. Los Angeles Times.
· Waldman, K. (15.10.2020) Louise Glück, Whisperer of the Seasons. The New Yorker.
· Glück, L. (2006) Averno. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
· Glück, L. (1992) The Wild Iris. Hopewell: Ecco Press.
· Photo - Katherine Wolkoff
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