Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Solo Performance of Louise Glück

I like Louise Glück the best of the "three tenors" listed in Hoagland's book. I found it interesting that I tended to like the earlier stages of each poet's craft.  I found something interesting at all stages, but I like the idea of keeping poetry generally accessible and not venturing too far into "art of the initiated" territory. That is why I appreciate Louise Glück. There are shifts in her work but it doesn't become obfuscated by the development of her work.


I love allusions and layers of meaning in poetry, when they are present and clear, a thousand tangents spring from them and you tap into the associations that those allusions have, the possible readings ripple forward from them. I also like the idea of taking on the voice of something that doesn't have one, like flowers. It has a rich possibility to it, it affords a transformation of perspective that you can't necessarily achieve when you put on the face of someone else; a being comes with a built in personality, perspective, and bias. Maybe flowers do to, but maybe they don't and that is what makes the perspective interesting because it can become what the poet pours into it.This is what makes Louise Glück awesome and her poem Witchgrass amazing. 


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Beginning lines of a poem of place in the style of Glück


Dry oak and earth propelling upward,
will swell in tandem with hot updrafts these days.
It will rage along golden grasses and collide
face first surprised to find it's ambition isn't alone.


Another pours in
cool salt surf insisting,
clothed in marine fog. 
Temperatures bow before the chill.
Beautiful battle lines rendered in shore line.  

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