Poet Louise Glück, in memoriam
October 15, 2023 12:24 AM Subscribe
Poet Louise Glück has died (NYT, gift link). Among many other accolades, she was the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature, for her "unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Previously.
The Night Migrations
This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds' night migrations.
It grieves me to think
the dead won't see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.
What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won't need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.
A few more favorites:
Widows
Purple Bathing Suit
Under Taurus
Snowdrops
The Wild Iris
The Night Migrations
This is the moment when you see again
the red berries of the mountain ash
and in the dark sky
the birds' night migrations.
It grieves me to think
the dead won't see them—
these things we depend on,
they disappear.
What will the soul do for solace then?
I tell myself maybe it won't need
these pleasures anymore;
maybe just not being is simply enough,
hard as that is to imagine.
A few more favorites:
Widows
Purple Bathing Suit
Under Taurus
Snowdrops
The Wild Iris
.
There’s a blog, largely a comprised of quotations from books the blogger was reading, and given that the he committed suicide, it’s hard not to read the entries as meditations on death and reasons to keep living. He typed up the whole of Averno, which is my favorite Louise Glück collection. I don’t know for sure if it helped him, but I imagine it did, at least for a while. I don’t know if Averno helped me, but it’s a great book, and its final lines have stuck with me.
posted by Kattullus at 2:52 AM on October 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
There’s a blog, largely a comprised of quotations from books the blogger was reading, and given that the he committed suicide, it’s hard not to read the entries as meditations on death and reasons to keep living. He typed up the whole of Averno, which is my favorite Louise Glück collection. I don’t know for sure if it helped him, but I imagine it did, at least for a while. I don’t know if Averno helped me, but it’s a great book, and its final lines have stuck with me.
PersephoneRest well, Louise Glück.
was used to death. Now over and over
her mother hauls her out again —
You must ask yourself:
are the flowers real? If
Persephone “returns” there will be
one of two reasons:
either she was not dead or
she is being used
to support a fiction —
I think I can remember
being dead. Many times, in winter,
I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,
how can I endure the earth?
And he would say,
in a short time you will be here again.
And in the time between
you will forget everything:
those fields of ice will be
the meadows of Elysium.
posted by Kattullus at 2:52 AM on October 15, 2023 [8 favorites]
I like prose that urges me to read it with a dictionary or a "phone" nearby to look up big words and unfamiliar references (Krasznahorkai, Kathryn Davis). But poetry, to me, works best when it sings, when it lives and breathes with power and beauty. We are fortunate that Louise Glück left so many remarkable poems for us to read.
posted by kozad at 4:26 AM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by kozad at 4:26 AM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Lawn Beaver at 5:41 AM on October 15, 2023
posted by Lawn Beaver at 5:41 AM on October 15, 2023
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posted by wicked_sassy at 5:43 AM on October 15, 2023
posted by wicked_sassy at 5:43 AM on October 15, 2023
Vespers is in my personal collection of favorite poems, and I wrote about this one when I copied it out:
I love it for its acknowledgment that we cannot live in the grander terrors but must dwell in the small terrors of the everyday instead.
posted by Peach at 6:17 AM on October 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
I do not garden, nor do I harbor the confidence that God expects much of me, should God exist. Yet I like the rueful, playful address beginning with the gently mocking officiousness of the start, brought back down to earth by the tomato plants. When I read it, I think of angels and the needless fire of the divine ravaging the earth; I like the dogged obsession and pride of the trivial charge at the end."I think I should not be encouraged to grow / tomatoes."
I love it for its acknowledgment that we cannot live in the grander terrors but must dwell in the small terrors of the everyday instead.
posted by Peach at 6:17 AM on October 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.
- somes lines from her October
The first couple poems I saw on social media yesterday didn't explicitly mention her death, so it took a bit for me to realize we'd lost her voice, and people weren't just finding solace in her words in this wreck of a week.
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posted by the primroses were over at 6:22 AM on October 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.
- somes lines from her October
The first couple poems I saw on social media yesterday didn't explicitly mention her death, so it took a bit for me to realize we'd lost her voice, and people weren't just finding solace in her words in this wreck of a week.
.
posted by the primroses were over at 6:22 AM on October 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
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posted by socialjusticeworrier at 8:40 AM on October 15, 2023
posted by socialjusticeworrier at 8:40 AM on October 15, 2023
Witchgrass
Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—
If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—
as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
One enemy—
I’m not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion—
It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.
I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.
posted by gwint at 10:45 AM on October 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Something
comes into the world unwelcome
calling disorder, disorder—
If you hate me so much
don’t bother to give me
a name: do you need
one more slur
in your language, another
way to blame
one tribe for everything—
as we both know,
if you worship
one god, you only need
One enemy—
I’m not the enemy.
Only a ruse to ignore
what you see happening
right here in this bed,
a little paradigm
of failure. One of your precious flowers
dies here almost every day
and you can’t rest until
you attack the cause, meaning
whatever is left, whatever
happens to be sturdier
than your personal passion—
It was not meant
to last forever in the real world.
But why admit that, when you can go on
doing what you always do,
mourning and laying blame,
always the two together.
I don’t need your praise
to survive. I was here first,
before you were here, before
you ever planted a garden.
And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon
are left, and the sea, and the wide field.
I will constitute the field.
posted by gwint at 10:45 AM on October 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Glück had a way of honest imagery, The confessional in contemplation, steerage towards honesty without circumlocution.
my favorite,
The Empty Glass.
"...Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,
to celestial force? To be safe,
I prayed. I tried to be a better person.
Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror
and matured into moral narcissism
might have become in fact
actual human growth. Maybe
this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,
telling me they understood
the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,
implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick
to give so much for so little.
Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—
a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos....."
and rounds out imagery with-in narrative.
"And I think in the end this was the question
that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,
the Greek ships at the ready, the sea
invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future
lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking
it could be controlled. He should have said
I have nothing, I am at your mercy.."
.
posted by clavdivs at 3:41 PM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
my favorite,
The Empty Glass.
"...Was it the sea? Responding, maybe,
to celestial force? To be safe,
I prayed. I tried to be a better person.
Soon it seemed to me that what began as terror
and matured into moral narcissism
might have become in fact
actual human growth. Maybe
this is what my friends meant, taking my hand,
telling me they understood
the abuse, the incredible shit I accepted,
implying (so I once thought) I was a little sick
to give so much for so little.
Whereas they meant I was good (clasping my hand intensely)—
a good friend and person, not a creature of pathos....."
and rounds out imagery with-in narrative.
"And I think in the end this was the question
that destroyed Agamemnon, there on the beach,
the Greek ships at the ready, the sea
invisible beyond the serene harbor, the future
lethal, unstable: he was a fool, thinking
it could be controlled. He should have said
I have nothing, I am at your mercy.."
.
posted by clavdivs at 3:41 PM on October 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I found Louise Gluck late, only a few years ago. I very much enjoyed Winter Recipies from the Collective, she has a great voice and the themes resonated with me. I was very saddened to hear of her passing.
posted by dougfelt at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2023
posted by dougfelt at 8:37 PM on October 15, 2023
I think I might have heard of Glück before seeing the obit, but I'm not sure.
Looking at her bio, two questions occurred to me. The first often does when I'm reading about someone with Glück's type of attainments: How was this person privileged enough to take the life course she did? The answer in this case is "She was the X-Acto Knife heiress."
The second was, what kind of third-generation American insists on spelling their name with a character that is not on the keyboard of any typewriter that would have been in use in the US ever, nor in the English-language character set of any font? That would be like me insisting on spelling my last name with an ø though the last Swedish-born ancestor died almost 100 years ago. It seems like a preposterously ostentatious gesture. Possibly a "fuck you" directed at the existence of typewriters?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:58 AM on October 16, 2023
Looking at her bio, two questions occurred to me. The first often does when I'm reading about someone with Glück's type of attainments: How was this person privileged enough to take the life course she did? The answer in this case is "She was the X-Acto Knife heiress."
The second was, what kind of third-generation American insists on spelling their name with a character that is not on the keyboard of any typewriter that would have been in use in the US ever, nor in the English-language character set of any font? That would be like me insisting on spelling my last name with an ø though the last Swedish-born ancestor died almost 100 years ago. It seems like a preposterously ostentatious gesture. Possibly a "fuck you" directed at the existence of typewriters?
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 6:58 AM on October 16, 2023
Aardvark Cheeselog:
Your question about privilege is valid. I ask it, too.
At the same time: you may not have heard of her, but I knew Louise.
She was important to me. She was the person who taught me (or taught me how to teach myself) to write a paper. She was also my first poetry workshop instructor. And my second. It's been a decade since I last spoke to her, and our last interaction was memorable, to me, mostly for how re-/de- jected I felt. But I learned from her there, too. How to be resilient, how to channel sadness and anger and self-doubt into sheer cussedness.
This was also the first thing she taught me, when she gave me a C+ on the very first paper I wrote in college. Sometimes it seems to me that I've been writing for more than twenty years in order to prove Louise Glück wrong.
So I'm having a little trouble with your comment. Do you ask about privilege at memorial services, too? Out loud? To people who are attending? In complicated grief? "Hey! I'm sorry for your loss! But how'd they afford so many mourners, such a fancy coffin?"
As for the umlaut, and your speculation about it being a "fuck you" directed at the existence of typewriters--Louise wrote all but her last two books on a typewriter, so I fucking doubt it.
posted by what does it eat, light? at 8:47 AM on October 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
Your question about privilege is valid. I ask it, too.
At the same time: you may not have heard of her, but I knew Louise.
She was important to me. She was the person who taught me (or taught me how to teach myself) to write a paper. She was also my first poetry workshop instructor. And my second. It's been a decade since I last spoke to her, and our last interaction was memorable, to me, mostly for how re-/de- jected I felt. But I learned from her there, too. How to be resilient, how to channel sadness and anger and self-doubt into sheer cussedness.
This was also the first thing she taught me, when she gave me a C+ on the very first paper I wrote in college. Sometimes it seems to me that I've been writing for more than twenty years in order to prove Louise Glück wrong.
So I'm having a little trouble with your comment. Do you ask about privilege at memorial services, too? Out loud? To people who are attending? In complicated grief? "Hey! I'm sorry for your loss! But how'd they afford so many mourners, such a fancy coffin?"
As for the umlaut, and your speculation about it being a "fuck you" directed at the existence of typewriters--Louise wrote all but her last two books on a typewriter, so I fucking doubt it.
posted by what does it eat, light? at 8:47 AM on October 16, 2023 [5 favorites]
my favorite spooky szn poem . . .
All Hallows
Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:
This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one
And the soul creeps out of the tree.
.
posted by exlotuseater at 9:30 AM on October 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
All Hallows
Even now this landscape is assembling.
The hills darken. The oxen
sleep in their blue yoke,
the fields having been
picked clean, the sheaves
bound evenly and piled at the roadside
among cinquefoil, as the toothed moon rises:
This is the barrenness
of harvest or pestilence.
And the wife leaning out the window
with her hand extended, as in payment,
and the seeds
distinct, gold, calling
Come here
Come here, little one
And the soul creeps out of the tree.
.
posted by exlotuseater at 9:30 AM on October 16, 2023 [3 favorites]
The New Yorker published some reminiscences of her today.
posted by dougfelt at 9:07 PM on October 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by dougfelt at 9:07 PM on October 16, 2023 [2 favorites]
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