Poet Louise Glück Wins 2020 Nobel Prize In Literature

Poet Louise Glück Wins 2020 Nobel Prize In Literature... https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/92178...=1602257771974

Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Glück

Poetry Foundation... https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/louise-gluck

Ta ! (short for tarradiddle),
tailor

I just read some of Louise Gluck's poetry.

It's nothing special.

I've read better poetry on this website (online-literature.com).

Thanks for opening this thread, tailor. Tastes differ, I liked the quiet dialogue of her poetry with the post modern tradition. Here are some more poems from the collection Averno (please ignore the translations into German, I was looking for poems from her for the German forum):http://www.smartredirect.de/redir/cl...-werke%2Fpage2

What I am in no condition to evaluate, not having read much poetry of late is, how much her poetry is innovative to the genre. In my opinion, this should be a foremost criteria for an international literature evaluating board.

If the human race is still here in 100 years, no one will be reading the poetry of Louise Gluck.

I respect the opinion of Danik, and I love a good debate, as did the immigrant side of my family. Nobody on the immigrant side of my family ever agreed on anything, and everybody disagreed & debated with a smile and a laugh.

I remember browsing through the entire poetry section of the main Manhattan circulating library branch. I read through poems at random through every poetry book. A library employee even asked me what I was doing, when I replied that I was looking through the entire poetry section at the library, she laughed (in a nice way) at my insanity.

Anyway, the poetry section was littered with poets who were very prestigious during their lifetimes, but who have faded into oblivion, because their works were lacking something.

The poets that survive the test of time, are the poets who are both innovative & exciting. Innovative is not enough. You must also be exciting!

The "poet" that we are discussing is neither innovative or exciting. Her works are doomed to oblivion. They will be on the shelves of libraries, forgotten, gathering dust, and never read. As they deserve to be.

Louise Gluck, in part, received the Nobel Prize for Literature because her poetry was not a threat to the powers that be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WolfLarsen

If the human race is still here in 100 years, no one will be reading the poetry of Louise Gluck.

I respect the opinion of Danik, and I love a good debate, as did the immigrant side of my family. Nobody on the immigrant side of my family ever agreed on anything, and everybody disagreed & debated with a smile and a laugh.

I remember browsing through the entire poetry section of the main Manhattan circulating library branch. I read through poems at random through every poetry book. A library employee even asked me what I was doing, when I replied that I was looking through the entire poetry section at the library, she laughed (in a nice way) at my insanity.

Anyway, the poetry section was littered with poets who were very prestigious during their lifetimes, but who have faded into oblivion, because their works were lacking something.

The poets that survive the test of time, are the poets who are both innovative & exciting. Innovative is not enough. You must also be exciting!

The "poet" that we are discussing is neither innovative or exciting. Her works are doomed to oblivion. They will be on the shelves of libraries, forgotten, gathering dust, and never read. As they deserve to be.

Louise Gluck, in part, received the Nobel Prize for Literature because her poetry was not a threat to the powers that be.

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Fair enough. What poet (besides Bukowski) will we be reading in 100 years in your opinion?

The best Poets I know of are Wolf Larsen, Anne Sexton, Octavio Paz, Pablo Neruda (Residence on Earth is his great work, not the love poems), Rainer Maria Rilke, Charles Baudelaire, and Arthur Rimbaud, to name some.

I don't know why anybody would bother reading the poetry of Charles Bukowski. But his prose is good.

Those are solid poets. Love Sexton and Paz. Yes, Bukowski was master of prose. His very early work (1955- say 1962 was more formal, quite a bit would be classified as poetry.).

Although surprised that Gluck won the Nobel prize, happy she did. Derek Walcott (a formalist) was previous winner, and that was surprising too.

I didn’t think that Derek Walcott’s poetry to be bad. (Derek Walcott won the Nobel Prize in 1992.) But Mr. Walcott’s poetry wasn’t exactly exciting, adventurous, or ground-breaking. No, I don’t think anybody will bother reading Mr. Walcott’s poetry 100 years from now.

The thing about the “gatekeepers” of the literary world (those that decide who gets published, and who gets an award) is that they appear to be hostile to anything exciting, adventurous, and ground-breaking. The “gatekeepers” don’t want anything rebellious getting through.
I think the “gatekeepers” have done an excellent job of keeping the literary world as boring, bland, and as non-threatening to the ruling class as possible.