Tag: Gluck

after Louise Glück

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

Last week I posted a poem by Louise Glück, who won the Nobel Prize, but I wrote this homage long before that happened–earlier this year, really, thinking about the virus:

October

         after Louise Glück

Aren’t the days skimping
on light again,
mornings dark
and darker

doesn’t the time change soon,
shifting the scant light

doesn’t the chill in the air
intensify now

doesn’t it remind you
how everything slows
withers

doesn’t the garden
yield its last sweet tomato
its last cucumber

the basil turns brown
overnight, few eggs
in the nests

doesn’t it seem like this end
might be the end

Meryl Natchez

And the winner is…

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in literature this week, and I’m so pleased. I really admire her work. And each book is different. Here’s a sample, from Averno.

October (section 1)

Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn’t Frank just slip on the ice,
didn’t he heal, weren’t the spring seeds planted

didn’t the night end, didn’t the melting ice flood the narrow gutters

wasn’t my body rescued, wasn’t it safe

didn’t the scar form, invisible above the injury

terror and cold,
didn’t they just end, wasn’t the back garden harrowed and planted—

I remember how the earth felt, red and dense, in stiff rows, weren’t the seeds planted, didn’t vines climb the south wall

I can’t hear your voice
for the wind’s cries, whistling over the bare ground

I no longer care what sound it makes

when was I silenced, when did it first seem pointless to describe that sound

what it sounds like can’t change what it is—

didn’t the night end, wasn’t the earth safe when it was planted

didn’t we plant the seeds,
weren’t we necessary to the earth,

the vines, were they harvested?

Late, but still Monday

Posted on by Meryl in Poetry

Louise-Gluck-credit-c-Katherine-Wolkoff-300x225Louise Glück is a poet whose works seems to evolve with each new book. This poem is one of my favorites:

Cottonmouth Country

Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other signs
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.

Louise Glück

 

Louis Gluck

Snippets

Posted on by Meryl in Stuff Larry Sez

Over breakfast we have have some pretty far ranging conversations. I am usually reading some poems (lately a selection Larry put together of his Berryman favorites), Larry is reading the Wall St. Journal or the NY Times. I read parts of these, too, the “soft” parts. I try to avoid the news, letting Larry be my filter. If it’s ever time to flee, I count on him to let me know.

Yesterday I was musing on what makes Louise Gluck’s poetry so powerful. Her imagery is not gorgeous, and her language tends to be plain not flashy.  Yet the poetry is strong. Currents of feeling move though it and jump out at you. And Larry said: Yes, Berryman writes like a man on a high wire; but Louise stands on the ground. Continue reading “Snippets” →