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."
- Four Seminal Collections: Experience the books that built a legacy: Firstborn, The House on Marshland, Descending Figure, and the National Book Critics Circle Award-winner, The Triumph of Achilles.
- Classical & Biblical Themes: Witness Gluck’s masterful use of classical myths and biblical stories to illuminate the raw, intimate landscapes of contemporary life, love, and loss.
- A Singular Poetic Voice: Discover the fierce, blade-like precision and austere beauty that established Gluck’s voice as one of the most original and important in American letters.
- For Readers of Literary Poetry: An essential collection for admirers of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning poets, and anyone seeking poetry of unflinching emotional depth and masterful craft.
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 WildIris, Gluck was celebrated early in her career for her fierce, austerely beautiful voice. InFirstborn, The House on Marshland Wand, Descending Figure, and The Triumph of Achilles, which wonthe National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, we see the conscious progression of apoet who speaks with blade-like accuracy and stirring depth.
"[Louise Gluck's] poems are delicately intense, spun out of fire and air, with a tensile strength that belies their fragility. They are rooted in landscape and weather and, increasingly, in intimacies of the heart. Everything she touches turns to music and legend."
