Synopses & Reviews
A luminous collection of essays from one of our most original and influential poets
Five decades after her debut poetry collection, Firstborn, Louise Glück is a towering figure in American letters. Written with the same probing, analytic control that has long distinguished her poetry, American Originality is Glück's second book of essays — her first, Proofs and Theories, won the 1993 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Glück's moving and disabusing lyricism is on full display in this decisive new collection.
From its opening pages, American Originality forces readers to consider contemporary poetry and its demigods in radical, unconsoling, and ultimately very productive ways. Determined to wrest ample, often contradictory meaning from our current literary discourse, Glück comprehends and destabilizes notions of "narcissism" and "genius" that are unique to the American literary climate. This includes erudite analyses of the poets who have interested her throughout her own career, such as Rilke, Pinsky, Chiasson, and Dobyns, and introductions to the first books of poets like Dana Levin, Peter Streckfus, Spencer Reece, and Richard Siken. Forceful, revealing, challenging, and instructive, American Originality is a seminal critical achievement.
Review
"Glück is an essayist at once generous and sharp, and her insights into craft, classic American poetry, and the souls of the poets, are essential reading." Jonny Diamond, LitHub
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“I cannot imagine the world of contemporary poetry without Glück’s work, which is a way of saying that without her work I cannot imagine the world....Her work is, in my estimation, not merely poetry but pedagogy, creed, philosophy.” Wayne Koestenbaum
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"A love of poetry — of the poet’s life — infuses these essays and brings a glow to the theoretical and a bright flame to the personal." Kirkus
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"Seemingly free of literary prejudice or poetic theory, Glück looks at poetry with open eyes, seeking that which catches her off guard or excites her soul. Highly recommended." Library Journal (Starred Review)
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"This is advanced literary theory, requiring careful reading and a fair amount of background knowledge of contemporary poetry, but Glück’s tone is conversational and accessible, and her opinions are invaluable." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Louise Glück is the author of a dozen books of poems and American Originality: Essays on Poetry. Her many awards include the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. She teaches at Yale University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.