Averno: Poems

Averno is a small crater lake in southern , regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its name to Louise Glücks eleventh collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter, it is the only source of heat and light, a gate or passageway that invites traffic between worlds while at the same time opposing their reconciliation. Averno is an extended lamentation, its long, restless poems no less spellbinding for being without plot or hope, no less ravishing for being savage, grief-stricken. What Averno provides is not a map to a point of arrival or departure, but a diagram of where we are, the harrowing, enduring presence.

"In a collection as good as her Pulitzer Prize — winning The Wild Iris (1992), Glck gives the Persephone myth a staggering new meaning, casting that forlorn daughter as a soul caught in 'an argument between the mother and the lover.' Taken from Demeter, her possessive earth-goddess mother, and raped, kidnapped and wed by Hades, Persephone now faces the insatiable demands of both. In 17 multi-part lyrics centered in her familiar quatrains, Glck traces Persephone's arc from innocence to, unhappily, experience: 'This is the light of autumn,' she writes in 'October,' 'not the light that says/ I am reborn.' Two poems entitled 'Persephone the Wanderer' flesh out her predicament ('What will you do/ when it is your turn in the field with the god?') and the self-deceiving responses ('you will forget everything:/ those fields of ice will be/ the meadows of Elysium') that drive the book. In between, scenes from a contemporary life (' 'You girls,' my mother said, 'should marry / someone like your father' ') parallel the unfolding myth, with Demeter coming to represent the body's desire to remain unchanged, or untouched, by love or death. That it turns out to be impossible is just another of the dilemmas brilliantly and unflinching dramatized in this icy, intense book. Empathic and unforgiving, the voice that unifies Persephone's despondent homelessness, Demeter's rageful mothering and Hades's smitten jealousy is unique in recent poetry, and reveals the flawed humanity of the divine." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Averno may be [Gluck's] masterpiece. Certainly it demonstrates that she is writing at the peak of her powers." Nicholas Christopher, the New York Times

Gluck presents her 11th collection of poems that takes its name from Averno, a small crater lake in southern Italy regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld.