First Four Books Of Poems [Paperback]

Louise Gluck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 1999

The First Four Books of Poems collects the early work that established Louise Gluck as one of America's most original and important poets. Honored with the Pulitzer Prize for The WildIris, Gluck was celebrated 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

"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

1. The Logos
12.6.71
2. Nocturne
3. The Covenant
4. The Clearing
Abishag
Adult Grief
All Hallows
Aphrodite
The Apple Trees
Archipelago
Aubade
Autumnal
Baskets
Brennende Liebe
Bridal Piece
Brooding Likeness
The Cell
The Chicago Train
Cottonmouth Country
The Cripple In The Subway
Day Without Night
Dedication To Hunger: 1. From The Suburbs
Dedication To Hunger: 2. Grandmother
Dedication To Hunger: 3. Eros
Dedication To Hunger: 4. The Deviation
Dedication To Hunger: 5. Sacred Objects
Departure
Descending Figure: 1. The Wanderer
Descending Figure: 2. The Sick Child
Descending Figure: 3. For My Sister
The Dream Of Mourning
The Drowned Children
Early December In Croton-on-hudson
Easter Season
The Edge
The Egg
Elms
The Embrace
The End Of The World: 1. Terra Nova
The End Of The World: 2. The Tribute
The End Of The World: 3. The End Of The World
Epithalamium
Exile
The Fire
Firstborn
Flowering Plum
For Jane Myers
For My Mother
The Fortress
From The Japanese
The Game
The Garden
Gemini
The Gift
Grandmother In The Garden
Gratitude
Gretel In Darkness
Happiness
Hawk's Shadow
Here Are My Black Clothes
Hesitate To Call
Horse
Hyacinth
Illuminations
The Inlet
The Islander
Japonica
Jeanne D'arc
La Force
Labor Day
The Lady In The Single
Late Snow
Legend
Letter From Our Man In Blossomtime
Letter From Provence
The Letters
Liberation
Love Poem
The Magi
Marathon: 1. Last Letter
Marathon: 2. Song Of The River
Marathon: 3. The Encounter
Marathon: 4. Song Of Obstacles
Marathon: 5. Night Song
Marathon: 6. The Beginning
Marathon: 7. First Goodbye
Marathon: 8. Song Of Invisible Boundaries
Marathon: 9. Marathon
Memo From The Cave
Meridian
Messengers
Metamorphosis: 1. Night
Metamorphosis: 2. Metamorphosis
Metamorphosis: 3 For My Father
The Mirror
Mock Orange
Morning
The Mountain
The Murderess
My Cousin In April
My Life Before Dawn
My Neighbor In The Mirror
Mythic Fragment
Nativity Poem
Night Piece
Northwood Path
Nurse's Song
Palais Des Arts
A Parable
Phenomenal Survivals Of Death In Nantucket
Pictures Of The People In The War
Pieta
Poem
Pomegranate
The Pond
Porcelain Bowl
Portland, 1968
Portrait
Portrait Of The Queen In Tears
The Racer's Widow
The Reproach
The Return
Returning A Lost Child
Rosy
Saturnalia
The School Children
Scraps
Seated Figure
Seconds
The Shad-blow Tree: 1. The Tree
The Shad-blow Tree: 2. The Latent Image
Silver Point
The Slave Ship
Solstice
Still Life
Summer
Swans
The Swimmer
Tango
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving
To Autumn
To Florida
The Tree House
The Triumph Of Achilles
Under Taurus
The Undertaking
Winter Morning
World Breaking Apart
The Wound
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

Louise GlÜck won the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris in 1993. The author of eight books of poetry and one collection of essays, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry, she has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the William Carlos Williams Award, and the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. She was named the next U.S. poet laureate in August 2003. Her most recent book is The Seven Ages. Louise GlÜck teaches at Williams College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (August 11, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880014776
• ISBN-13: 978-0880014779
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful, Elegant Work of Art, July 10, 2001

By 

Emily Jane Bronte "venice1002" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: First Four Books Of Poems (Paperback)

I bought this book for my intermediate poetry class, and although I have not yet finished reading through all of it, I have placed it high on my list of favorites. Each of Gluck's poems is something to be savored - you can feel the words on your tongue, and the pictures she provides are so real that you almost wish her memories and images were your own. Only Gluck can describe something as heart-wrenching as a fickle lover as waspishly and deliciously as she does, ending that particular poem with the words "You pimp." Nor can the reader ignore her own delicate, luminous poem "The Nativity", which expresses her own thoughts on the birth of Christ. The majority of Gluck's poetry is short and the lines simple; however, the images triggered by the words and what she means to convey is of a far greater volume. As you read through this fantastic collection, you'll find that many of Gluck's images, ideas, glories and frustrations are those of every person. The way she expresses herself leaves you bowed over at each poem's end, and you always want to read ahead to see what else she will present you with. These poems are Gluck's gift to the world, and the poetry unfolds before the reader as serenly as a flower unfolds to the sun. So check it out, you might really enjoy and be uplifted by what you read!

15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, won the Pulitzer for a reason!, June 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: First Four Books Of Poems (Paperback)

Gluck has a wonderful control of mood and language, and she shows it off here. The poems as a whole come together to tell the beautiful story in three voices, and the book needs to be read in one sitting. Then read again. Then read again. Easily one of the best collections of poetry this decade.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolution of the contemporary woman, December 13, 2001

By 

L. Richmond - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: First Four Books Of Poems (Paperback)

Self-expression is perhaps the only cure for the great social gag that once bound women's creativity. Female poets are essentially empowering themselves through language; society no longer expects them to be simply silent and useful. In particular, Louise Gluck deals with many of the issues facing the contemporary woman as an individual. Her work addresses the feminine identity as it relates to independence and personal fulfillment. The stark simplicity of her language underscores the depth and complexity of her subjects with a sense of tight control. Her writing is constantly evolving; the poems as a body of work are as meaningful when taken together as each is standing alone. Beginning with tentative exploration in her early work -marked by themes of loss and emptiness - Gluck's poetry moves towards a denouement of fierce self-actualization, just as in modern culture women make their way towards triumphant fulfillment. In this collection of her first four books, one may see the movement of a voice from submissive flesh forward into exclamatory liberation.