I’ve been trying to read more poetry, and I happened to read Louise Glück’s collection The Wild Iris shortly before she won the Nobel Prize in literature this year. I don’t feel qualified to write anything about poetry. I don’t know a lot about poetry, so I often feel like I’m missing references and things about the style that would be significant to someone who knows poetry better. I also have trouble reading it slowly enough to chew on it and let it sink in. I sometimes try to make myself read it “out loud” in my head, which can help a little, but I often feel like I’m just bathing in the words, not retaining them. So I’ll keep this short.
The Wild Iris evoked dirt, family, grief, and God for me. Flowers and plants, working close to the ground, the small intimacies of living with someone else, a distant deity, the difficulty of having emotions. The poet wants to be understood but often has no way of reaching the person or entity by which she wants to be understood.
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