Poems

No American poet writes better than Louise Glück, perhaps none can lead us so deeply into our own nature

Stephen Dobyns

It is difficult to think of another living poet whose voice contains so much electrifying undercurrent, whose rhythms are under such control, but whose work is also so exposed and urgent.

Colm Tóibín, Guardian

A tremendous poet ... Louise Glück has spent a lifetime showing us how to make language both mean something and hold everything

Claudia Rankine, Guardian

Put together, these compact volumes have a great novel's cohesiveness and raking moral intensity. They display a supple and prosecutorial mind interrogating not merely her own life but also the sensual and political nature of the world that spins around it. . . . No other poet slices with such accuracy and deadly intent . . . Glück is fearless.

Dwight Garner, New York Times

Glück is among the most moving poets of our era . . . This voice is not going to go away.

Dan Chiasson, New Yorker

As with other great poets, Glück does not invite paraphrase. Her poems at their best--and they are very often at their best--embody not just the rage to order, but also the rage to identify a 'truth' that no order can approximate or touch.

Robert Boyers, Nation

Glück is as important and influential a poet as we have in America . . . Glück's work is all edges . . . the sharper ones can inflict heavenly hurt, where the meanings are. If you want to know about the last half-century of American poetry, you need to read these poems."

Michael Robbins, Los Angeles Review of Books

You read a passage by Glück and think, Ah yes, of course, this is how it is. She has the extraordinary writer's gift of making clear what is, outside the world of her poem, complex ... [and] a compassionate, comprehensive vision of human understanding and destiny. Her poetry, for all its huge distinction, its vibrant intelligence and its beauty, has never lost the ability to serve society, or the reader.

Fiona Sampson, Guardian

Glück is unparalleled in finding beauty in tribulation more so than any American poet since Emily Dickinson.

David Biespiel, The Oregonian