Now and then a book review or commentary or interview with the writer
comes along that makes me not only want to read the book, but actually
go out and get it, right now. This is one of those. Thanks, Poetry Foundation, for hosting and posting this conversation.
“My first book without struggle and without despair,” says Louise Glück, describing her new collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night. Indeed, the poems and bits of prose collected in Glück’s 13th book of poetry are dreamy, even ethereal, but as absorbing and intensely experienced as ever. Glück hardly needs an introduction—she has so many prizes and honors to her name that she seems to be the first and final word in contemporary American poetry—so suffice it to say that in this new volume, she has compiled a series of otherworldly poems that manage to represent all things Glück: they’re intimate, seductive, spellbinding. And yet this book is in many ways a rebirth for her, an attempt at imagining something new.
“My first book without struggle and without despair,” says Louise Glück, describing her new collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night. Indeed, the poems and bits of prose collected in Glück’s 13th book of poetry are dreamy, even ethereal, but as absorbing and intensely experienced as ever. Glück hardly needs an introduction—she has so many prizes and honors to her name that she seems to be the first and final word in contemporary American poetry—so suffice it to say that in this new volume, she has compiled a series of otherworldly poems that manage to represent all things Glück: they’re intimate, seductive, spellbinding. And yet this book is in many ways a rebirth for her, an attempt at imagining something new.