Louise Glück

Louise Glück Facts

Some quick facts about Glück's body of work, life, and poetry are listed below. These facts are by no means exhaustive, as her work and curious life could be interrogated much further than expressed here.

Fig. 1 - An iris, as in Glück's collection The Wild Iris.

Louise Glück Biography

Louise Glück was born in 1943 in New York City, but grew up in Long Island with her two parents. She developed Anorexia nervosa at a young age and struggled with the illness into her adult years. She began writing poetry at a young age and began taking courses in poetry workshops at St. Lawrence College as well as Colombia University for several years after her graduation from high school.

Glück is a sensitive poet who is interested in the existential, the sensitive, and the unknown. She explores the relationship of humanity to childhood, family, and our origins. She commonly includes themes of love and loss in her work, and explores the nature of humanity as something that is not eternal, rather short-lasting and all the more beautiful for it. Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize for Literature for her work done with childhood and emotional memory, and she explores trauma studies in her work as well.

Glück's work commonly includes allusions to Greek mythology, as she was taught Greek mythology at a young age by her parents. She also includes Biblical allusions in much of her work, and explores spirituality and faith as well. Some collections that include allusions to Greek mythology include her critically acclaimed work, The Triumph of Achilles (1985), as well as Averno (2006) and nearly all of her other collections.

Early life of Louise Glück

Louise Glück, born in New York City in 1943, spent most of her early years on Long Island. She lived with her parents, Daniel Glück (who invented the X-Acto Knife) and Beatrice Glück (a homemaker). Glück's parents reportedly taught her Greek mythology and read her classic stories, and Glück began writing poetry at an early age.

In her teen and early adult years, Glück developed Anorexia nervosa. She has claimed on several occasions that her development of this illness was a result of several traumatic events, one of which (the death of her eldest sister) occurred before she was born.¹

Glück struggled with this loss into her late teen and early adult years. When she was a senior in high school she began psychoanalytic treatment, and several months after that took a leave of absence to concentrate on her rehabilitation. She has said that during this time she knew she was going to die, but more than that she did not want to die.² Glück graduated high school in 1961 and continued psychoanalytic treatment for the next 7 years as she recovered from her illness.

Fig. 2 - Photograph of Louise Glück circa 1970s.

As a result of her continued recovery, upon high school graduation Glück did not immediately enroll in a degree-seeking program. Instead, she enrolled in a poetry workshop at St. Lawrence College, and continued to enroll in these workshops at Columbia University between the years of 1963 and 1966, as they accepted non-degree students. While attending these workshops, around the age of 22 Glück began publishing her work. Her first publication was in the magazine Mademoiselle, founded in 1934.

Career and Later Years of Louise Glück's Life

As Glück began to pick up steam in terms of writing, she began publishing her poetry in several literary magazines and newspapers, including The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly. She worked as a secretary after leaving Colombia to fund her living expenses, and married Charles Hertz Jr. in 1967. Glück published her first collection of poems, Firstborn, in 1968, which received critical acclaim.

Glück then suffered from self-proclaimed writer's block, which was resolved when she began teaching poetry at Goddard College in 1971. In 1975 she published her next collection House on Marshland, which is widely considered to be her breakthrough work.

In 1977 Louise Glück's marriage to Charles Hertz Jr. ended in divorce, and several years later she married author John Dranow. Glück went on to publish many works (outlined below) between the years of 1977 and 1980, and continued gaining popularity. In 1980, soon after publishing her collection Descending Figure, Glück's house in Vermont burned down, and she and John Dranow lost most of their possessions.

This tragedy inspired her to begin writing poems later included in her next and most famous collection, The Triumph of Achilles (1985). In 1984 Glück became a senior lecturer in the Department of English at Williams College. The following year, her father died, and his passing spurred the creation of her collection Ararat (1990).

The 1990s were a decade of literary success for Louise Glück, despite personal hardships such as her marriage to John Dranow ending in 1996. She published her collection Meadowlands, a collection focusing on the destruction of a marriage and the experience of divorce, that same year. In 2004, Glück became the Rosenkranz Writer-in-Residence at Yale University, where she remains today.

In 2020, Louise Glück received the Nobel Prize in Literature for her works exploring the nature of family and childhood, joining the small and powerful ranks of laureates. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Glück received this prize at her home and delivered her Nobel Lecture in writing. This lecture references William Blake and Emily Dickinson and their contributions to the relationships between poets and the wider public.

Louise Glück remains a Writer-in-Residence at Yale University.

Louise Glück's Books and Poetry Collections

Louise Glück has many poetry collections. Included below is a comprehensive list of her poetry collections, along with select honors for several of her collections.

Louise Glück's Poems

Louise Glück has hundreds of poems, along with many famous poems listed below. Her most famous poem by far is entitled 'Mock Orange' (1985) and is widely considered to be a feminist anthem.

Louise Glück Quotes

There are many, many quotations that Louise Glück is known for. She is not one who shies away from the nature of humanity, but rather she centers herself in the world as a person who writes vulnerable and sensitive poetry. Below are a few quotations that make Glück stand out as a writer and person with a distinctive and unique poetic voice.

Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in Literature for her work regarding childhood and family. The above quotation is from her poem 'Nostos', which explores the concept of memory and the nostalgia of looking back on one's childhood. Glück explores the nature of humanity and childhood as well as the development of the self and soul in much of her work.

This quotation above comes from the poem 'Persephone the Wanderer' (2006), and is well known for describing the sensation of not being fully grounded in the body, as well as the liminal state of human mortality. Glück is also known to interrogate this liminal space between the spirit and the self in her writing techniques and styles. She says regarding the ellipsis:

This quotation points to the way in which a writer can use formatting and punctuation to create new meaning in a piece of writing. Glück's interest in this form of writing demonstrates her existential, yet relatable and beautiful work.

¹ Daniel Morris. The Poetry of Louise Glück: A Thematic Introduction. Columbia: University of Missouri Press. 2006.

² Louise Glück. Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry. 1994.

³ Louise Glück. 'Nostos'. Meadowlands. 1997.

⁴ Louise Glück. 'Persephone the Wanderer'. Averno. 2006.

⁵ Louise Glück. 'Disruption, Hesitation, Silence'. 1993