Averno: Poems (alkuperäinen julkaisuvuosi 2006; vuoden 2007 painos)

To be honest: I am not a real poetry lover; I prefer the broad, layered narratives of prose. The Nobel Prize 2020 made me take on this small volume (barely 70 pages). And immediately you can notice: Glück writes from her own universe, she does not have a formal focus, but a substantive one, and it is supported by a broad range of personal experience.
The Greek Persophone myth is central to this collection, or at least the myth is the narrative that is used as the central guideline. With Persophone you immediately think of seasonal changes, but also of death and damnation, seclusion and varying happiness. Glück connects this in a lived-through way with physicality, and thus transience, despair and hope, appearance and reality. Barely 70 pages, I already wrote. But enough pages to enjoy for a long while. ( )

To such endless impressions
we poets give ourselves absolutely,
making, in silence, omen of mere event,
until the world reflects the deepest needs of the soul.

Averno is poetic eschatology—a rumination on the end, meaning, believing, understanding. Reflections on Persephone, dead or kidnapped, making sense of things chthonic, paired with a young girl's loss of innocence after burning a wheat field to ash. Glück peers into the "pit of disappearance," takes heed of what she sees there, and renders tentative revelations:

All your life, you wait for the propitious time.
Then the propitious time
reveals itself as action taken.

&

You die when your spirit dies.
Otherwise, you live.
You may not do a good job of it, but you go on—
something you have no choice about.

&

But ignorance
cannot will knowledge. Ignorance
wills something imagined, which it believes exists. ( )

I wasn't as fond of this as her other collections, though I loved the Persephone poems. They spoke to me the most and were the strongest. In my eyes, at least. Those I'll definitely revisit. ( )

Aching emotions and nature. Simple language, myth, and history. Will need to find more Gluck. Going for Meadowlands next. ( )

This collection wasn't as enjoyable as "Ararat". The poems in this collection are more abstract and the themes are more repetitive. Gluck uses the myth of Persephone to explore the nature of the human soul and death. The minor themes were fields, the relationship between Mothers and Daughters (to a much lesser extent than in "Ararat"), and Seasons. I enjoyed the collection but I can't pin point a particular poem that stood out to me. 'Prisms' was probably my favorite. ( )