Prism by Louise Glück
Prism
Louise GlückThe assignment was to fall in love.
The author was female.
The ego had to be called the soul.The action took place in the body.
Stars represented everything else: dreams, the mind, etc.The beloved was identified
with the self in a narcissistic projection.
The mind was a sub-plot. It went nattering on.Time was experienced
less as narrative than ritual.
What was repeated had weight.Certain endings were tragic, thus acceptable.
Everything else was failure.
MARGINALIA
Someone told me today that I was too studious (ugh!) and then this poem came to mind and suddenly everything takes on a different meaning.
ABOUT LOUISE GLüCK
Louise Glück was born in New York, New York, on April 22, 1943, and grew up on Long Island. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, including Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2014), which won the 2014 National Book Award in Poetry; Averno (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006), a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award in Poetry; and Vita Nova (Ecco Press, 1999), winner of Boston Book Review’s Bingham Poetry Prize and The New Yorker’s Book Award… (more)
Read more poems by Louise Glück • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: repetition • perception • love • Or browse the index
- If this work resonates with you, please consider supporting the archive. Thank you for reading.
Pingback: Prism by Louise Glück « The Poetry Book