Name: The Wild Iris
Rating: 4.102564102564102 (39 reviews)
ISBN: 9780880013345

Louise Glück

The Wild Iris

Fiona

miya

calling to me even in despair; my sorrow 

akshita

not modern enough, the sound the wind makes

vacant again, lifeless, covered with snow—"

as though it were the vineyards of heaven

while the fields go up in flames around you—"

"as though you were making a sign after all

to convince me you too couldn’t survive here

or to show me you are not the light I called to

in the room, flickering here and there, here and there,

and summer’s deep sweetness filling the open window."

"White over white, the moon rose over the birch tree."

Annabelle Gauthier

This is how you live when you have a cold heart. 

As I do: in shadows, trailing over cool rock, 

You wanted to be born; I let you be born. 

what I can’t conceive, and you disclose

Matins You want to know how I spend my time? I walk the front lawn, pretending to be weeding. You ought to know I'm never weeding, on my knees, pulling clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact I'm looking for courage, for some evidence my life will change, though it takes forever, checking each clump for the symbolic leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already the leaves turning, always the sick trees going first, the dying turning brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform their curfew of music. You want to see my hands? As empty now as at the first note. Or was the point always to continue without a sign?

I will need to read this again outdoors… perspective shifts between god, the author, and the plants in her garden; they all create each other

My heart sunk when it ended, it should've gone on forever

she writes the god i learned as a child, the anger, the fear, the gentleness—the sorrow and the love. 

Kristen Thomas

“Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you.”

i wanted to enjoy this more than i did, but i did enjoy it

mira lee

Katarina

I could not express how grateful I am to read Glück in this period of time. Her voice is magnificent, true, and haunting. It haunts me.

Kate

So many intricate and stunning poems in here. Some of the poems did fall a little flat or go over my head, but the majority of poems in this collection are exquisite and definitely warrant five stars.

The poems in this collection are written in the language of flowers. Louise Gluck received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Wild Iris" in 1993, and has also received the National Book Critics Award for Poetry and the Poetry Society of America's Melville Kane Award.

Prashant Prasad

the blue iris 
* trillium 
think what i understand already. i woke up ignorant in a forest; 
only a moment ago, i didn’t know my voice
if one were given to me 
would be so full of grief, my sentences 
like cried strung together. 
i didn’t even know i felt grief 
until that word came, until i felt 
rain streaming from me 

* love in moonlight 
sometimes a man or woman forces his despair 
on another person, which is called 
baring the heart, alternately, baring the soul—
meaning for this moment they acquired souls—

* the red poppy
The great thing 
is not having 
a mind. Feelings: 
oh, i have those; they
 govern me
…
What should such glory be
if not a heart?

* the silver lily
after the first cries,
doesn’t joy, like fear, make no sound? 

* the white lilies
Hush, beloved. it doesn’t matter to me
how many summers i live to return: 
this one summer we have entered eternity. 
i felt your two hands 
bury me to release its splendour.

This collection of stunningly beautiful poems encompasses the natural, human, and spiritual realms, and is bound together by the universal themes of time and mortality. With clarity and sureness of craft, Gluck's poetry questions, explores, and finally celebrates the ordeal of being alive.

The Wild Iris

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