Poet of the Week

Louise Glück

Louise Glück was a poet whose work is celebrated for its clarity and exploration of the self. She won numerous prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris (1992) and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020. Her poetry often draws from classical mythology, personal trauma, nature, and familial relationships.

Her narrators are often haunted by loss and isolation, speaking in voices that are oracular and mythic. This is shown through her usage of Greek mythological figures as well. An example can be seen in the poem Snowdrops from The Wild Iris:

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

The Wild Iris, in its entirety, is emblematic of Glück’s work as a whole: personal revelations filtered through the natural world.

Some other poems of hers include:
Vita Nova
Archaic Fragment
Elms

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence Ferlinghetti was an esteemed poet, painter, publisher, and activist. He spent a century (literally, he lived to 101!) challenging what we imagine as "American literature," especially considering his status as a Beat, though he often rejected that label. He is perhaps best remembered as the co-founder of San Francisco’s City Lights Bookstore, a landmark that remains an incredible site for counterculture to this day.

Before he was a poet, though, it was his service in the U.S. Navy during World War II that fundamentally reshaped his worldview. Throughout his career as a poet and publisher, Ferlinghetti consistently challenged the status quo, especially when considering the disparity between the image of the elite artist at the time and the everyday writer. His poetry was incredibly reflective of political movements at the time and the beauty of everyday urban life, often writing about pop culture like film and music. An example is from The Canticle of Jack Kerouac (with way better formatting!):

As the world cracks by / thundering / like a lost lumber truck / on a steep grade / in Kerouac America / The woman sits silent now / rocking backward / to Whistler’s Mother in Lowell / and all the tough old / Canuck mothers / and Jack’s Mémère

Ferlinghetti was named San Francisco’s first Poet Laureate in 1998. He remained active well into his late 90s, continuing to paint and write from his home until his death in 2021.

Some of my favourites from him include:
London Crossfigured
Retired Ballerinas, Central Park West
Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)