When the American poet and essayist Louise Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal“; I was intrigued to learn more about her.
I was not familiar with Glück or her work even though she had published 13 books of well-received poetry over a 52 year span, served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 2003 and was the recipient of numerous literary awards – including the the Pulitzer Prize, the National Humanities Medal, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Bollingen Prize.
While looking into Glück’s background, I learned that she was born in New York City in 1943 and raised on Long Island. Glück’s mother was of Russian Jewish descent and her father’s parents were Hungarian Jews who emigrated to the United States and ran a grocery store in New York.
Glück’s father had an ambition to become a writer, but went into business with his brother-in-law and achieved success when they invented the X-Acto knife. Glück’s mother was a graduate of Wellesley College. In her childhood, her parents taught Louise Greek Mythology and classic stories such as the life of Joan of Arc – themes of which she would mine in many of her later poems.
She began to write poetry at an early age, but as a teenager and young adult Glück struggled with anorexia. She described the illness as the result of an effort to assert her independence from her mother and as a way for her to come to terms with the illness and death of an of an elder sister.
During the fall of her senior year she was taken out of high school to focus on her rehabilitation. She spent the next seven years in psychoanalytic therapy which she credited with helping her learn how to think and overcome her anorexia. During this time period she attended classes at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University and worked part time as a secretary – which she said did not suit her temperamentally.
Glück has been married twice, both marriages ending in divorce, and has one son. She currently lives in Cambridge Massachusetts and is an adjunct professor at Yale University.
While the subjects of Glück’s poems are wide and varied, scholars have identified the most common themes in her work as trauma, death, loss, suffering, failed relationships, and attempts at healing and renewal.
The scholar Daniel Morris observed that even a Glück poem that uses traditionally happy imagery still “suggests the author’s awareness of mortality, of the loss of innocence“. The writer Linda Rodriguez noted that “Her poetry explores the intimate drama of family tragedies resonating through the generations and the relationship between human beings and their creator.”
Glück utilizes her focus on trauma as a gateway to a greater appreciation of life says Carol Malone, writing for the Best American Poetry 2020 book, and uses her acceptance of mortality as a way to become a more fully realized human being.
I listened to a 2012 Academy of Achievement interview with Louise Glück that I found very thoughtful. When asked why she still writes, Gluck responded:
“Because I feel alive when I’m doing it and much less alive when I’m not doing it. I write to discover meaning… It’s much less about who I am than the idea that nothing should be wasted. Also, writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too. Bad luck, loss, pain; if you make something out of it then you are no longer bested by the events.”
It’s that kind of thinking, I believe, that allows Glück to be brutally honest in her poetry. She is not writing for her audience per se, but for herself. To make herself feel more alive, to make sense of her experiences and to wrestle even the negative circumstances of her life into something positive.
Later in the interview, when she is asked how she feels about the accolades and awards she has received for her work, she responds:
“They are nice and make life more comfortable. But what I want is not capable of being had in my lifetime. I want to live after I die, in that ancient way, and there will be no knowing until that happens – no matter how many blue ribbons I have attached to my corpse.”
There is a maturity and wisdom in her recognition of the vanity of earthly awards, and of their ultimate meaningless in the face of eternity. It will remain a mystery what the afterlife has in store for Louise Glück, but, I like to think that it is certain she will continue to live on through the striking poems she leaves behind.
One such striking poem I came across while browsing through her Collected Works 1962-2012 is titled New World:
This poem made me think about my general reluctance to wander far from home – and how my preference to focus more on the interior life than the exterior life may have contributed to “holding down” my more exuberant life companions.
Because my engineering and marketing career necessitated frequent travel, I came to realize early on that travel is overrated. It seemed to me the best part of most journeys is that moment when you finally return to the comforts of home.
I am not alone in this sentiment. It was Blaise Pascal’s opinion that all human evil comes from man’s inability to sit still in his room; and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his book Self-Reliance: “Travelling is a fool’s paradise, our first journey’s discover to us the indifference of places… Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home”.
Reading this poem reminded me that it is important for me to temper my preference for the quiet and contemplative life with a spirit of adventure as well – because I don’t want to be the lead strapped to the ankles of my beloved family or the wet blanket that prevents them from experiencing adventures that contribute to making life memorable and interesting.
Life is a balance and being a recluse can blind you to all that the world has to offer. Also, what good does it do to be floating free if there is no one to share it with?
Today, Louise Gluck lives in Cambridge MA but she has spoken in the past about falling in love with the state of Vermont when she first moved there in 1971 to begin teaching at Goddard College. She credits the move as being instrumental in helping her get past her writer’s block.
Tragically, a fire destroyed her Vermont house in 1980 resulting in the loss of all her possessions. After the fire, Louise reluctantly moved from the state where she felt so much at home.
When the reporters asked her what she intended to do with the $1.1 million dollar award money that came with winning the Nobel Prize, it made me smile when she said she was thinking of buying a house in Vermont.
Enjoy Vermont Ms Gluck – I hope you feel very alive there and maybe I will be lucky enough to bump into you someday during my New World travels to that magical Green Mountain state to visit with my beloved family connections.
Words to Live By... 
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