Vita Nova
by Louise Glück
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In Vita Nova, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet Louise Glück manages the apparently impossible: a terrifying act of perspective that brings into resolution the smallest human hope and the vast forces that shape and thwart it Since Ararat in 1990, Louise Glück has been exploring a form that is, according to the poet, Robert Hass, her invention. Vita Nova-like its immediate predecessors, a booklength sequence-combines the ecstatic utterance of The Wild Iris with the worldly dramas elaborated in show more Meadowlands. Vita Nova is a book that exists in the long moment of spring: a book of deaths and beginnings, resignation and hope; brutal, luminous, and far-seeing. Like late Yeats, Vita Nova dares large statement. By turns stern interlocutor and ardent novitiate, Glück compasses the essential human paradox. In Vita Nova, Louise Glück manages the apparently impossible: a terrifying act of perspective that brings into resolution the smallest human hope and the vast forces that thwart and shape it. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This was suggested to me when I asked for books and poetry about breakups that honored the former sweetheart as well as the process of getting over the end of a very good relationship.
This books filled that bill, but not the way I really expected it to. The poems focused on the first person, and the narrator's journey, both inner and outer. This is a book that'll bear re-reading. All the poems spoke to me, but I couldn't always make out the message.
This books filled that bill, but not the way I really expected it to. The poems focused on the first person, and the narrator's journey, both inner and outer. This is a book that'll bear re-reading. All the poems spoke to me, but I couldn't always make out the message.
Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winning author, Lousie Glück writes with contention. She is a strident witch of hazel persuasion. More circumstance than would be borrowed from poets of the ilk. Terrible reformist as always (jaja) the genius is her craft is the craven submission of friendly neighbor’s kisses and an alto vacuum of deft lovelessness
Read this in one sitting. Is it my favourite Gluck? Maybe. Spring: renewal, death, rebirth. Appropriate to me right now in my life.
Need to reread this before I make any decisions about how I feel about this. Obviously not as good as The Wild Iris, but still good.
The Winged Horse
It's ten years ago today you turned me out the door
To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shore
And I thought about the all in all, Oh more than I could tell
But I caught a horse to ride upon and I rode him very well
He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side
And I ride and I ride!
I rode him out of Wantage End, I rode him up the hill
And there I saw the beacon in the morning standing still
Inkpen and Hagpen and southward and away
High through the middle airs in the heat of the day
And there I saw the channel glint and England in her pride
And I ride and I ride
And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere,
I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear
And Turpin out of show more Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord,
And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword
For the time he should have need of it; - and forty more beside!
And I ride; and I ride!
For you that took the all in all, the things you left were three:
A loud voice for singing, and keen eyes to see,
And a spouting well of joy within that never yet was dried!
And I ride! show less
It's ten years ago today you turned me out the door
To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shore
And I thought about the all in all, Oh more than I could tell
But I caught a horse to ride upon and I rode him very well
He had flame behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side
And I ride and I ride!
I rode him out of Wantage End, I rode him up the hill
And there I saw the beacon in the morning standing still
Inkpen and Hagpen and southward and away
High through the middle airs in the heat of the day
And there I saw the channel glint and England in her pride
And I ride and I ride
And once atop of Lambourne Down, towards the hill of Clere,
I saw the host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear
And Turpin out of show more Gascony, and Charlemagne the lord,
And Roland of the Marches with his hand upon his sword
For the time he should have need of it; - and forty more beside!
And I ride; and I ride!
For you that took the all in all, the things you left were three:
A loud voice for singing, and keen eyes to see,
And a spouting well of joy within that never yet was dried!
And I ride! show less
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40+ Works 6,381 Members
Louise Elizabeth Gluck, 1943 - Louise Gluck was born April 22, 1943 in New York City, New York. She grew up on Long Island and attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University, both in New York State. She is best known for her award winning collection entitled "The Wild Iris". After graduation, Gluck began teaching poetry, accepting show more positions at various colleges and universities. In 1968, her first collection entitled "Firstborn" was published. Seven years later she published "The House on the Marshland", and in 1985, "The Triumph of Achilles" won the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. In 1993, she was an editor of The Best American Poetry anthology. Her last appointment was as Senior Lecturer in English at Williams College. Louise Gluck is considered one of the most gifted poets of her generation. Known for her well-crafted use of verse and meter, she first garnered attention with "Firstborn", a collection of poetry from 1968. Full of angry emotion and disturbing tone, her poetry deals with the horrible and painful. In 1985, "The Triumph of Achilles" was released to thunderous applause, gaining awards in every category. It received the National Book Circle Award, the Boston Globe Literary Press Award and the Poetry Society of America's Melville Kane Award. Gluck has received the Bollingen Prize in Poetry, the Lannas Literary Award for Poetry, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowments for the Arts. Her collection "Ararat", (1990) received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbett National Prize for Poetry. Other collections include "The Garden" and "The Wild Iris". The "Wild Iris", perhaps her most award winning collection acquired the highest honor possible in 1993, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. It also received the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Award In 1994 she was named Poet Laureate of Vermont, and was elected as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2003, she was named Poet Laureat of the United States. She was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1999
- Epigraph
- The master said You must write what you see.
But what I see does not move me.
The master answered Change what you see. - Dedication
- To Kathryn Davis, Karen Kennerly and Ellen Bryant Voigt
To Tom and Vera Kreilkamp - First words
- You saved me, you should remember me.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Then I moved to Cambridge.
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- 94,671
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.75)
- Languages
- English, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 1
