The Wild Iris

By Louise Gluck

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

From Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück, a stunningly beautiful collection of poems that encompasses the natural, human, and spiritual realms

Bound together by the universal themes of time and mortality and with clarity and sureness of craft, Louise Glück's poetry questions, explores, and finally celebrates the ordeal of being alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063117648

Louise Gluck

Louise Glück (1943-2023) was the author of two collections of essays and thirteen books of poems. Her many awards included the Nobel Prize in Literature, the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris, the National Book Award for Faithful and Virtuous Night, the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Triumph of Achilles, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poems 1962–2012, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. She taught at Yale University and Stanford University and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Book preview

The Wild Iris

At the end of my suffering

there was a door.

Hear me out: that which you call death

I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.

Then nothing. The weak sun

flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive

as consciousness

buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being

a soul and unable

to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth

bending a little. And what I took to be

birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember

passage from the other world

I tell you I could speak again: whatever

returns from oblivion returns

to find a voice:

from the center of my life came

a great fountain, deep blue

shadows on azure seawater.

Matins

The sun shines; by the mailbox, leaves

of the divided birch tree folded, pleated like fins.

Underneath, hollow stems of the white daffodils, Ice Wings, Cantatrice; dark

leaves of the wild violet. Noah says

depressives hate the spring, imbalance

between the inner and the outer world. I

Reviews for The Wild Iris

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a collection of poems I hope to understand some day.

[greeniezona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I bought this based on a close reading of a single poem on the Book Riot podcast. I knew it was going to be right up my alley and it REALLY was. Musings on religion and existence through the metaphor/reality of gardening, and it ends up blending faith with a sort of naturalistic fatalism and I ate it up with a spoon. I have been sleeping on Glück too long, and I need to read at least one more of her collections this year.Favorite poems: Matins (p. 31), Midsummer, Vespers (p. 37), End of Summer, Vespers (p. 56)

[hippielunatic · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I appreciated this trialogue between human, nature, and the divine, discussing life lessons intended and ignored.I was drawn particularly to the parental despair of the divine, the angst of the human, and the zen of the flowers.

[danlai-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The most common piece of criticism that I hear about Louise Glück is that she needs to “stop writing about flowers.” I suppose that’s valid, but a bit simplistic. I do feel that at times she is working too hard to find meaning in clovers or something, just so she can fill up the collection. But for me, the vast majority of these poems really work. I can’t really say that I fully understand the nuances of poetry and what makes a poem good or bad, so if you are a more casual reader of poetry, like me, this review might be helpful.

The other reviews will tell you that God is represented by poems titled with seasons, weather, or light; people are represented by poems titled with prayers (Vespers and Matins, mostly); and nature is represented by poems titled with flowers or other plants. In this review, I do the same. It’s important to know. But really, what is the difference between us and nature, to God? For that matter, to the plants, what is the difference between us and God?

There are differences, here, though I can’t really tell you what they are. Just that the essences of things are different. Glück understands these essences perfectly and works them over, basically turning the entire collection into a giant apostrophe to the larger world of things outside the self, looking for recognition, exploring the joys and limitations of experience, the complexities of a fulfilling or unfulfilling relationship (with God or not), growth, depression and persistence, as well as the coming death winter brings. The plants die, humans retreat from the garden, God sleeps. When that happens, you can return to this collection and remember the summer.

So yes, this collection is “about flowers.” If your basic level of reading comprehension stops there, then go ahead and skip this.

[hankiii · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It's been quite a while since I last read this one from a grad course. I picked it up today, and thought I'd give it another shot without the cumbersome grad school stress peeling back my skin, making me hate the literary pundits, and so ready to throw each volume of the OED at the next pontificating windbag of politics and academia. But all of that is behind me now, so it deserves a baggage-free read--so far exceptionally good. Review will follow soon. After reading it:Did I state exceptionally good? (cough) It seems my urge to project an intellectual analyis before even reading it again caught up with me.I didn't really care for it. However, I can acknowledge that it would appeal to others. I just found the book a little gimicky?Anyway, live and learn and watch your garden grow.

[andreas6wpv · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

May be I just don't get her special style of writing (which, of course, I do not believe), but to me this book is just not poetic, not intense, not thought or emotions provoking babble.

[yonderboy777-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is probably my favorite book out of my entire library. Stark, multi-layered, elegant, Gluck's garden speaks in an oracular voice of the unceasing effort of living and the inevitability of death. Her flowers are tortured, and their pain speaks to the timeless condition of humanity. The influence of the inimitable Stanley Kunitz is evident (I read once that these poems were developed under his direct guidance). If you enjoy this and want to explore more about its context, you may want to invest in Kunitz's lovely book *The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden*.

[stickpoet-711369 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The second book of poetry by Gluck that I've read and by far the best of the two. Very lyrical with excellent use of metaphor. I almost did not read this book based upon the previous contact with the author's work. This would have been my loss.

[whitewavedarling · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The language is graceful, as are the images, but they also weren't memorable for me. I'm afraid that while the talent with language shows through here, I won't be coming back to these.

[abirdman_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Pulitzer prize winning book, and perhaps the most accessible Gluck book ever. The Matins (and others) are prayers. And the poems about flowers (the Red Poppies poem, especially) are brilliant, rich, sensual. Read it.