First Four Books of Poems - Softcover

Gluck, Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0880014776 ISBN 13: 9780880014779

Publisher: Ecco Press, 1999

Synopsis

Louise Gluck says in one of her essays that every end of a book is for her a "conscious diagnostic act, a swearing off" in which she discerns the themes, habits, and preoccupations of the previous volume to define the tasks of the next. The First Four Books of Poems shows this poet in the conscious evolution she describes, marking time in changes. Readers will hear specifics of sequence: where the ferocious tension of her first book, Firstborn, moves towards the more finely-spun lyricism of her second, The House on Marshland. They will also discover how the charged nouns of that book acquire more intimate weight to become the icons in her third, Descending Figure, and then rise to an archetypal mythic scale in The Triumph of Achilles. These poems are as various as the force of Gluck's intelligence is constant. In another essay, she cautions, "the deft skirting of despair is a life lived on the surface, intimidated by depth, a life that refuses to be used by time, which it tries instead to dominate or evade." The First Four Books of Poems attests to how truly Gluck has tested and proven the validity of her own warning. The fierce, austerely beautiful voice that has become Gluck's trademark speaks in these poems of a life lived in unflinching awareness. Always she is moving in and around the achingly real, writing poems adamant in their accuracy and depth. Their progression is proof of her commitment to change; with her first four books of poetry collected in a single volume, Louise Gluck shows herself happily "used by time."

About this title

Product Description:

HardCover. Pub the Date: April. 2010 Pages: 228 in Publisher by: HarperCollins Publishers of The First Four Books of Poems collects the early work that . Louise Gluck as one of America's most original and important. Poets. Honored with the Pulitzer is Prize for of The WildIris. Gluck was celeated early in her career for her fierce. austerely beautiful voice. InFirstborn. The House on Marshland Wand. Descending Figure. and The Triumph of Achilles. which wonthe National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. we see the conscious progression of apoet who speaks with blade-like accuracy and stirring depth.

Review:

"This is courageous writing .... when Gluck applies lyric grace to her own mysterious vision she captivates her readers, assuming her rightful place among the finest poets of the age."-- Mary Karr, author of "The Liar's Club""[Louise Gluck's] poems are delicately intense, spun out of fire and air, with a tensile strength that belies their fragility. They are rooted in landscape and weather and, increasingly, in intimacies of the heart. Everything she touches turns to music and legend."-- Stanley Kunitz"Gluck's ... poetry is rock-bottom hard and final yet marked by a sentience next to clairvoyance, and subtle surprise, and strong beauty. In the midst of the usual fumbling well-meant 'delightful' efforts of the poetry of any age, poems like hers must come as a liberating rout of everything would-be, tepid, maundering, arbitrary."-- Calvin Bedient

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0880014776
• ISBN 13: 9780880014779
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 240