LOUISE GLÜCK (b. 1943) is an American poet whose willingness to confront the horrible, the difficult, and the painful resulted in a body of work characterized by insight and a severe lyricism.  Her many literary awards and honors include the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."

In her work, Glück has focused on illuminating aspects of trauma, desire, and nature. In exploring these broad themes, her poetry has become known for its frank expressions of sadness and isolation. Scholars have also focused on her construction of poetic personas and the relationship, in her poems, between autobiography and classical myth. 

Her first collection of poetry, FIRSTBORN (1968), used a variety of first-person personae, all disaffected or angry.  The collection’s tone disturbed many critics, but Glück’s exquisitely controlled language and imaginative use of rhyme and metre delighted others.  Although its outlook is equally grim, THE HOUSE ON MARSHLAND (1975) shows a greater mastery of voice.  There, as in her later volumes, Glück’s personae included historic and mythic figures such as Gretel and Joan of Arc.  The poems in THE TRIUMPH OF ACHILLES (1985), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, address archetypal subjects of classic myth, fairy tales, and the Bible.  These concerns are also evident in ARARAT (1990), which has been acclaimed for searing honesty in its examination of the family and the self.

The poems in THE WILD IRIS (1992), which won the Pulitzer Prize, encompass the natural, human, and spiritual realms, and are bound together by the universal themes of time and mortality.  AVERNO (2006) was her well-received treatment of the Persephone myth.  The poems collected in A VILLAGE LIFE (2009) — about existence in a small Mediterranean town — were written in a lavishly descriptive style that significantly departed from the parsimony that characterizes her earlier verse.

POEMS 1962–2012 compiled all her published volumes of poetry until 2012.  FAITHFUL AND VIRTUOUS NIGHT (2014), which deals with mortality and nocturnal silence, received the National Book Award.

Also included here is AMERICAN POETRY, a collection of her essays written with the same probing, analytic control that distinguishes her poetry.  It forces readers to consider contemporary poetry and its demigods in radical, unconsoling, and ultimately very productive ways.



The following books are in ePUB format unless otherwise noted:

== POETRY ==

* Ararat (1990) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Averno (FSG, 2007)
* Descending Figure (1980) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Faithful and Virtuous Night (FSG, 2014)
* Firstborn (NAL, 1968) -- PDF + incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* House on Marshland, The (1975) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Meadowlands (1996) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Poems 1962-2012 (FSG, 2012)
* Seven Ages, The (2001) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Triumph of Achilles, The (1985) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Village Life, A (FSG, 2009)
* Vita Nova (1999) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012
* Wild Iris, The (1992) — incl. in Poems 1962-2012

== NON-FICTION ==

* American Originality: Essays on Poetry (FSG, 2017)

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