About the Author
Glück is the author of nine books of poetry, including The Triumph of Achilles (won the National Book Critics Circle Award), Ararat (won the Bobbitt National Poetry Prize), The Wild Iris (received the Pulitzer Prize), and Vita Nova (won the first annual New Yorker Magazine's Readers Award and the Ambassador's Award). Her honors include the William Carlos Williams Award, a Lannan Literary Award, the 2001 Bollingen Prize for Poetry, and, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. She teaches at Williams College.
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Section I of
October I. Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn't Frank just slip on the ice,
didn't he heal, weren't the spring seeds planted didn't the night end,
didn't the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters wasn't my body
rescued, wasn't it safe didn't the scar form, invisible
above the injury terror and cold,
didn't they just end, wasn't the back garden
harrowed and planted? I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren't the seeds planted,
didn't vines climb the south wall I can't hear your voice
for the wind's cries, whistling over the bare ground I no longer care
what sound it makes when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound what it sounds like can't change what it is? didn't the night end, wasn't the earth
safe when it was planted didn't we plant the seeds,
weren't we necessary to the earth, the vines, were they harvested?
