Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
The First Four Books of Poems collects the early work that
established Louise Gluck as one of America's most original and important
poets.
Honored with the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris, Gluck was
celebrated early in her career for her fierce, austerely beautiful
voice. In Firstborn, The House on Marshland, Descending Figure, and
The Triumph of Achilles, which won the National Book Critics Circle
Award for Poetry, we see the conscious progression of a poet who speaks
with blade-like accuracy and stirring depth. The voice that has become
Gluck's trademark speaks in these poems of a life lived in unflinching
awareness. Always she is moving in and around the achingly real, writing
poems adamant in their accuracy and depth. Their progression is proof of
her commitment to change; with her first four books of poetry collected
in a single volume, Louise Gluck shows herself happily "used by time."