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Quote by Louise Glück

Work

The Wild Iris

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Author

Louise Glück
Louise Glück

Louise Glück (born April 22, 1943) is an American poet and essayist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020. Born in New York City to Hungarian Jewish immigrants, she developed a passion for poetry early in life. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. Glück's poetry is known for its precise, austere language and deep psychological insight, often exploring themes of family, love, death, and nature. Her major works include 'The Wild Iris' (1992), 'The Seven Ages' (2001), and 'Faithful and Virtuous Night' (2014). She has received numerous honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award, and served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004. Her works have been translated into many languages and have had a profound impact on contemporary poetry. more

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“What is dying anyway? I let this impossible question fill the darkness of my bedroom. I thought about how somebody was always dying somewhere, at any given moment. This isn’t a fable or a joke or an abstract idea. People are always dying. It’s a perfect truth. No matter how we live our lives, we all die sooner or later. In which case, living is really just waiting to die. And if that’s true, why bother living at all? Why was I even alive? I made myself crazy, tossing and turning, hyperventilat- ing. Then it hit me: dying is just like sleeping. You only know you’re sleeping when you wake up the next day, but if morn- ing never comes, you sleep forever. That must be what death is like. When someone dies, they don’t even know they’re dead. Because they never see it happen, nobody ever really dies. This hit me like a sucker punch.”

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“Tell me a story and let's laugh like it's the only think keeping us alive. Play a song and give the stereo permission to use its outside voice. Let's sing loudly, offbeat and out of tune. Let the world know we don't care how it sounds because the only key we need is already in the ignition. Let the sky turn the windshield into a stage. Watch it dance like he scenery is auditioning to be part of our story. Let's just go. Drive until our troubles phantom in the rearview mirror and we forget the exist, at least for a moment.”

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“سألتهُ من أنتَ؟ فأجابَ قائلاً: أنا مَنْ ألهمتك الأدبَ وَالشِّعْر وجعلتُكِ تَخُطِّينَ بِالقَلَمِ وبِالفُصْحَى أنا الذي أحببتُكِ رُوحَا أَيَّتُهَا الأُنثى وَتَوَّجَتْك في مُهْجَةِ القلبِ أنفَسَ فِكرة أنا عُصَارةُ حُبِكَ إنْ فهمتِ المغزَى وذاكِرَتُكِ التي تَنْسِج وتغزِلُ النثرَ أنا اَلصَّدِيق اَلْمُحِبّ الأوفى وسكينتُكِ لنهايةِ عُمْرِكِ لكِ البُشْرَى أنا آدَمُ ثُلَاثِيّ الحُروفِ فاذكُريني يَا أُنثى.”

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“In Search of El Dorado by Stewart Stafford A meandering mountain path awaits, Build a bonfire of remembrance, With crunching staff on gravel, Certainty slowly becomes a stranger. The funereal pace of the brand-new, Is reborn in accelerating steps, In concert with liberation's adrenaline, And a cooling breeze through the brim. Startled young fox on a crag, A hawk circles overhead, Sage standing stones keep counsel, Their shadows pointing the way forward. Sheep stare and chew in nearby wet fields, Occasionally bleating confused directions, A pillar of black smoke stretches into the sky, A beacon on the horizon. A ridge around a corner, The crêpe shop comes into view, Relief exhaled upon reaching El Dorado's gates, Golden sustenance and home via the car park. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”

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