Louise Glück

Nobel prize winner, Pulitzer Prize winner, National Book Award winner, Professor of English and Poetry at both Yale and Stanford, and Poet Laureate of the United States. Her poetry is autobiographical, touching, sad, romantic, mythological, natural and modern.

As always, choose your level of participation:

Below, we have the Essentials level, then there’s the Fullest Experience for the brave souls.

This is The IDEAS Institute’s own Mythological Midsommar. We will gather under Moon and Star. Let yourself become the PROCESS of poetry. Write a poem to read to everyone. There will be Music, Dreams, Drink, Discussion, Intimacy and PLAY.

Read The Wild Iris
Read Faithful and Virtuous Night
Read Averno
Watch Robin Williams in this Dead Poets Society scene: “What Will Your Verse Be?”
Listen to “Everything is an Invitation” on the Insights at the Edge podcast: a brilliant hour-long conversation with poet David Whyte discussing the revelatory poetry of everyday conversation and emotion.
Ponder this quote: “If poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”
- Jim Morrison
Watch “What makes a poem… a poem?,” a 5-minute TEDTalk: Poetry as a concept.
Witness the evolution of Louise Glück by watching 2 interviews that are 30 years apart:
- An early interview from 1982. Kalliope: an interview with Louise Gluck
- An interview 30 years later: Louise Gluck, Academy Class of 2012, Full Interview
Read these 3 short articles on the joys and difficulties of reading poetry:
Why is Poetry so difficult to understand (Slate)
To read Poetry like a Poet, don’t worry about “getting it” (NPR)
How to read Poetry (Writing Life)
Watch Youtuber Leaf by Leaf discussing the themes and poems of Gluck: “Making omens of mere events.”