Meadowlands

by Louise Glück

In an astonishing book-length sequence, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Gluck interweaves the dissolution of a contemporary marriage with the story of The Odyssey. Here is Penelope stubbornly weaving, elevating the act of waiting into an act of will; here, too, is a worldly Circe, a divided Odysseus, and a shrewd adolescent Telemachus. Through these classical figures, Meadowlands explores such timeless themes as the endless negotiation of family life, the cruelty that intimacy enables, and the frustrating trivia of the everyday. Gluck discovers in contemporary life the same quandary that lies at the heart of The Odyssey: the "unanswerable/affliction of the human heart: how to divide/the world's beauty into acceptable/and unacceptable loves."

Genres: Poetry, Mythology, Fiction, The United States Of America, Nobel Prize, American, Poetry Plays

84 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

American poet Louise Elisabeth Glück served as poet laureate of the United States from 2003 to 2004.

Parents of Hungarian Jewish heritage reared her on Long Island. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and later Columbia University.

She was the author of twelve books of poetry, including: A Village Life (2009); Averno (2006), which was a finalist for The National Book Award; The Seven Ages (2001); Vita Nova (1999), which was awarded The New Yorker's Book Award in Poetry; Meadowlands (1996); The Wild Iris (1992), which received the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America; Ararat (1990), which received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. She also published a collection of essays, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.

In 2001, Yale University awarded Louise Glück its Bollingen Prize in Poetry, given biennially for a poet's lifetime achievement in his or her art. Her other honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize (Wellesley, 1986), the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection, The Wild Iris . Glück is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award ( Triumph of Achilles ), the Academy of American Poet's Prize ( Firstborn ), as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Anniversary Medal (2000), and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.

In 2020, Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."

Glück also worked as a senior lecturer in English at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, served as a member of the faculty of the University of Iowa and taught at Goddard College in Vermont. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teached as the Rosencranz writer in residence at Yale University and in the creative writing program of Boston University.

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just slurped up this volume like a cup of hot coffee on a winter day,
or a sparkling pink prosecco on a Friday lunch date,
or a glass of apple juice with ice cubes on a balcony in the shade during a heatwave,
...

I loved the combination of timeless myth and everyday struggling.

Clarity and wisdom. Nerves on inside again.

If you are Telemachus, it is hard to tell if Odysseus or Penelope shaped you more. Freedom is not caring about that and thinking about your shape as belonging to you!

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was a child looking
at my parents' lives, you know
what I thought? I thought
heartbreaking. Now I think
heartbreaking, but also
insane. Also
very funny.

[Henk · Rating 3 out of 5]

References and poems reflecting on the Odyssee are interspersed by bickering between two modern day lovers. Reads easily but didn't elicit an emotional reaction for me
I wanted her life to be like a play
in which all the parts are sad parts.
- Siren

Telemachus, the son of Penelope and Odysseus often addresses the reader in poems that reflect on him growing up with only one parent, potentially a metaphor for the marital problems of the poet who divorced her husband in the same year as Meadowlands was published.
Also the poem Midnight contains the drudgery of everyday life, symbolised by dishes and garbage, and its potential result of infidelity.

I enjoyed this poem, permeated by melancholy:
The night isn’t dark; the world is dark.
…
Before that, lightly stroking my shoulders.
Like a man training himself to avoid the heart.
…
How can I know you love me
unless I see you grief over me?
- Departure

And the self reflection of Louise Glück on her style in the below poem is fun as well:
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.
- Nostos

But the below more historical poem, potentially referring to Agamemnon and his sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia to go to Troy, was the highlight of the bundle for me:
The great king looking ahead
saw not fate but simply
dawn glittering over
the unknown island: as a king
he thought in the imperative - best
not to reconsider direction, best
to keep going forward
over the radiant water. Anyway,
what is fate but a strategy for ignoring
history, with its moral
dilemmas, a way of regarding
the present, where decisions
are made, as the necessary
link between the past (images of the king
as a young prince) and the glorious future (images
of slave girls). Whatever
it was ahead, why did it have to be
so blinding? Who could have known
that wasn’t the usual sun
but flames rising over a world
about to become extinct?
- Parable of the king

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.”
- From Nostos.

When I read Ulysses, I was fascinated by Stephen Dedalus’ musings on Hamlet, where he “proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather”... or something to that extent. Meadowlands also takes Homer’s work as inspiration. This is a really tightly bound collection of poems. Well worked out, provocative, masterful. I am giving this 5 stars because, as Ulysses made me rethink Shakespeare, this collection made me rethink Homer.

Poems I enjoyed:
- Penelope’s Song
- Quiet Evening
- Parable of the Hostages
- Telemachus’ Guilt
- Telemachus’ Kindness
- Parable of the Dove
- Telemachus’ Fantasy
- Circe’s Grief
- Parable of the Swans

Here is Penelope’s Song:

Little soul, little perpetually undressed one,
do now as I bid you, climb
the shelf-like branches of spruce tree;
wait at the top, attentive, like
a sentry or look-out. He will be home soon;
it behooves you to be
generous. You have not been completely
perfect either; with your troublesome body
you have done things you shouldn’t
discuss in poems. Therefore
call out to him over the open water, over the bright water
with your dark song, with your grasping,
unnatural song – passionate,
like Maria Callas. Who
wouldn’t want you? Whose most demonic appetite
could you possibly fail to answer? Soon
he will return from wherever he goes in the meantime,
suntanned from his time away, wanting
his grilled chicken. Ah, you must greet him,
you must shake the boughs of the tree
to get his attention,
but carefully, carefully, lest
his beautiful face be marred
by too many falling needles.

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does it matter where the birds go? Does it even matter
what species they are?
They leave here, that’s the point,
first their bodies, then their sad cries.
And from that moment, cease to exist for us.

You must learn to think of our passion that way.
Each kiss was real, then
each kiss left the face of the earth.

[Karen Witzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume published in 1996. "We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory."

The childhood here is the childhood of poetry as the story of Penelope, Odysseus, Telemachus, Circe is interwoven with that of a modern marriage. I liked it.

[Sweet Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Μέτρια αλλά τέλος πάντων καλύτερη από τα μέχρι τώρα δείγματα γραφής της. Από ότι φαίνεται από την δεκαετία του 90 και μετά η πένα της βελτιώθηκε αισθητά, χωρίς - το ξαναλέω- να είναι κάτι τρομερό.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sabe aquele dia que você não tem pique algum para ler? Comecei a leitura meio chocha, mas a cada poema fantástico minha energia ia crescendo, nessa mistura de Odisseia com poesia confessional e chegando ao fim não tive dúvidas que estava diante de uma obra-prima.

Void

I figured out why you won’t buy furniture.
You won’t buy furniture because you’re depressed.

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you: you’re not
gregarious. You should
look at yourself; the only time you’re totally happy
is when you cut up a chicken.

Why can’t we talk about what I want to talk about?
Why do you always change the subject?

You hurt my feelings. I do not mistake
reiteration for analysis.

You should take one of those chemicals,
maybe you’d write more.
Maybe you have some kind of void syndrome.

You know why you cook? Because
you like control. A person who cooks is a person who likes
to create debt.

Actual people! Actual human beings
sitting on our chairs in our living room!
I’ll tell you what: I’ll learn
bridge.

Don’t think of them as guests, think of them
as extra chickens. You’d like it.
If we had more furniture
you’d have more control.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, Louise. Louiiiise. You're so good at this.

The multiple perspectives work so well; every narrator is empathetic and insightful in some way. Glück's phrasing is so sharp and exquisite. A few poems got into my heart and really twisted it around. How does she do it? I wanted to mark almost every poem as a favorite, but here are the ones I ultimately decided on:

Penelope's Song
Ithaca
Rainy Morning
Midnight
Marina (ohhh man)
The Rock (the ultimate slytherin poem)
Purple Bathing Suit (complicated feelings abound about this one)
The Wish (a poem about poems)

The poems from Telemachus' point of view stood out to me as well for their depiction of a complicated and fraught parental relationship.

[Come Musica · Rating 5 out of 5]

La fine di un amore e di un matrimonio è come un Meadowlands, lo stadio dei Giants, nel New Jersey.
Louise Glück mette in versi quel per sempre che si infrange con la fine delle promesse che spariscono in un pugno di sabbia che scivola via e lo fa rifacendosi al mito e riflettendo sull'Odissea: le liti tra i due amanti si alternano con le ragioni di Telemaco, di Penelope e di Odisseo.

“Giochiamo a scegliere la musica. La forma preferita.
L’opera lirica.
La tua preferita.
Figaro. No. Figaro e Tannhauser. Ora
tocca a te: cantamene una.”

“Una quieta sera

Mi prendi la mano, poi siamo soli
nella foresta minacciosa. Quasi subito

siamo in una casa: Noah
è cresciuto e se ne è andato; la clematide dopo dieci anni
improvvisamente dà fiori bianchi.

Più di ogni altra cosa al mondo
amo le sere in cui siamo insieme,
le quiete sere d’estate, il cielo ancora chiaro a quest’ora.

Così Penelope prese la mano di Odisseo,
non per trattenerlo ma perché si imprimesse
questa pace nella sua memoria:

da questo punto in poi, il silenzio che attraversi
è la mia voce che ti insegue.”


“Notte senza luna

Una dama piange a una finestra senza luce.
Dobbiamo dire di cosa si tratta? Non possiamo dire semplicemente
una faccenda privata? È inizio estate;
nella casa accanto i Light si stanno esercitando con la musica klezmer.
Questa notte sono in buona: il clarinetto è intonato.

Quanto alla dama — aspetterà per sempre;
è inutile continuare a osservarla.
Dopo un poco, le luci della strada si spengono.
Ma aspettare per sempre
è sempre la risposta? Nessuna risposta
può essere sempre quella giusta; la risposta
dipende dal racconto.

Un grande errore volere
sopra ogni altra cosa chiarezza. Cos’è
una sola notte, specialmente
una come questa, ora così vicina a finire?
Dall’altra parte, ci potrebbe essere qualunque cosa,
tutta la gioia del mondo, le stelle che impallidiscono,
le luci della strada che diventano una fermata d’autobus.”

[Stephanie ~~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rest in Peace.
As the Latin saying goes, "Ars long, vita brevis."
Thank goodness for the words that always stay. Louise Glück was one of the most amazing and prolific poets and essayists of our time. She passed away this week. In between reading books and working on my own writing, I've been reading her poetry books every morning and evening for a half hour or thereabouts. She'll be sorely missed.

[Bob Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great once again, Louise Glück rapidly is becoming one of my favourite authors.

Especially the poems written from the point of view of Circe (Power, Torment and Grief) are so so powerful.

Phew.

[Jason Furman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I rarely read poetry but I got this collection when I saw some reference to it being partly a take on The Odyssey. And I loved it. The poems are mostly from the perspective of a husband and wife in a marriage that is falling apart. Some are from the son ("Telemachus") and a few from others (including Circe). Some feel very much based on the Odyssey but others much further from it. I liked the way they read (even I could understand them, at least enough), the way they fit together, and some seemed particularly witty and all gave me a new perspective.

I might try more poetry. Recommendations?

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the seventh collection by the 2020 Nobel Laureate – which effectively (and relatively straightforwardly) has two interleaved series of poems: the first is the tale of the dissolution of a modern day marriage, the second is the story of Penelope/Telemachus and Odysseus.

Coming into the book I had expected to be more interested in the first set of stories.

I know from previous reading that Glück is very strong on writing poems about myths (as well as bible stories) but I felt that, through no fault of her own necessarily, I have read too many modern literary takes on the Iliad and The Odyssey – particularly as I have never read the original, so all I know of the story is the largely feminist modern takes I have read – so much so that the original, or any idea that the text is written from a male viewpoint, seems odd to me.

And I enjoyed Glück’s emerging ability in her poetry collections to tell the story of her family (or at least a family very much like her own) – particularly in her first really strong collection “Ararat”.

However in practice the opposite happened. I found the mythical poems – which are largely told from the viewpoint of Penelope, Circe and increasingly Telemachus strong. I wonder if part of this is that I am still finding my way in poetry – and so it turned out that having a familiar reference point worked well (much as it did for Glück’s biblical poems in the Jewish and Christian stories of “A Triumph of Achilles”).

My favourite is perhaps Telemachus’ Confession

They
were not better off
when he left; ultimately
I was better off. This
amazed me, not because I was convinced
I needed them both but because
long into adulthood I retained
something for the child's
hunger for ritual. How else address
that sense of being
insufficiently loved? Possibly
all children are
insufficiently loved; I
wouldn't know. But all along
they each wanted something
different from me: having
to fabricate the being
each required in any
given moment was
less draining that
having to be
two people. And after awhile
I realized I was
actually a person; I had
my own voice, my own perceptions, though
I came to them late. I no longer regret
the terrible moment in the fields,
the ploy that took
my father away. My mother
grieves enough for us all.

But on the other hand I could not really identify with the modern day poems. I felt the start was interesting as there are clear echoes of the ending of “The Wild Iris” (the author’s previous and most famous collection)

We’re in a house; Noah’s
Grown and moved away; the clematis after ten years
Suddenly flowers white.

However after that (with perhaps an exception for a poem “Sirens” – which I think is by the “other woman” and links neatly if rather clunkily to the mythical section) many of the poems are conversations between the married couple as their marriage tries to break apart – and a first row involving insults about artichokes and Flaubert simply destroyed my real interest.

Overall not my favourite collection.

[Guillermo · Rating 5 out of 5]

«¿Quién iba a saber que no se trataba del sol de siempre sino de llamas que se alzaban sobre un mundo a punto de extinguirse?».

[António Jacinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poderoso, mas não tão impressionante quanto "Averno", "Ararate" ou "Uma vida de aldeia". O circuito fechado da casa. Ele, ela. O resto é com os Gregos. A tradução de Inês Dias é magnífica.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Circe’s poems are some of my favorites. “I refuse you such feeling as your wife will let you rest with her, I refuse you sleep again if I cannot have you.” “You took me to a place where I could see the evil in my character and left me there.”
“Parable of the Trellis” is another great one, and “Rainy Morning.”
Some misc. favorite lines:

“Look at John, out in the world,
running even in a miserable day
like today. Your
staying dry is like the cat’s pathetic
preference for hunting dead birds: completely

consistent with your tame spiritual themes,
autumn, loss, darkness, etc.

We can all write about suffering
with our eyes closed. You should show people
more of yourself; show them your clandestine
passion for red meat.” (Rainy Morning)

and of course,

“We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.” (Nostos)

that one will be rattling around in my head for a long time.

[megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The night isn't dark; the world is dark.
Stay with me a little longer.

Your hands on the back of the chair -
that's what I'll remember.
Before that, lightly stroking my shoulders.
Like a man training himself to avoid the heart.

[Moonless Night]

[Diego Arango · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this is great, especially the dialogue between the Telemachus, the Penelope and the Circe poems: the completion of tradition.

[Elisabeth Goemans · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.”

[Pernilla (ett_eget_rum) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Älskar hur Glück använder karaktärer ur Odyssén för att gestalta ett äktenskap.
I övrigt kanske det var osmart av mig att läsa på engelska men jag gillar tydligen att krångla till det för mig (inte för att engelska är så svårt meeen lyrik osv). Begriplig lyrik ändå och det gillar vi.

[Christian M · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 —

Delicate and domestic and beautiful.

[Johan Thilander]

Jag har en oro att Glück står i vägen för Anne Carsons nobelpris (vad nu ett nobelpris är värt).

[Tina Persson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Det är klokt att bryta ovanan att inte läsa poesi med Meadowlands. Den är finurlig och lättillgänglig och framförallt rolig. För den som är bevandrad inom grekisk mytology finns det kanske ännu fler lager att falla för. Men vad vet jag. Jag döpte i tonåren mina möss till Kaos och Kirke för att det var coola namn...

[Júlia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like watching you garden
with your back to me in your purple bathing suit:
your back is my favorite part of you,
the part furthest away from your mouth.

You might give some thought to that mouth.
Also to the way you weed, breaking
the grass off at ground level
when you should pull it by the roots.

How many times do I have to tell you
how the grass spreads, your little
pile notwithstanding, in a dark mass which
by smoothing over the surface you have finally
fully obscured. Watching you

stare into space in the tidy
rows of the vegetable garden, ostensibly
working hard while actually
doing the worst job possible, I think

you are a small irritating purple thing
and I would like to see you walk off the face of the earth
because you are all that's wrong with my life
and I need you and I claim you.

🤍

[Claudia Pastor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este es mi primer libro de Glück y ha sido suficiente para entender por qué es una premio Nobel. En este, hay poemas increíbles y hay poemas que han invadido cada parte de mi cabeza durante horas y días.

Hablar de una relación de pareja contemporánea paralelamente a la historia de "amor" en espera de Odiseo y Penélope nos pone frente a una idea: ¿cómo contar una historia tantas veces contada y hacer sentir al lector que todo eso que estás contando es nuevo? Glück lo logra en este libro.

Me maravilla encontrar a una autora capaz de hablar del amor uniendo hilos que a veces parecen invisibles.

[Gus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically my thoughts of this book were part of my review of the Odyssey. I loved this. A favorite little gem called 'Telemacchus' Detachment': "When I was a child looking/ at my parents' lives, you know/ what I thought? I thought/ heartbreaking. Now I think/ heartbreaking, but also/insane. Also/ very funny." <33

[sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

she doesn’t fuck around huh

[Malaena · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Wish” by Louise Glück is one of my favorite poems. by itself the poem is heartbreaking and moving, but takes on a whole new level when you read the entirety of this collection and realize it’s proceeded by a poem called “The Butterfly.”

Every poem in this collection is like a new a bud on a flower. Weaving in her parents, her ex husband and their divorce, greek mythology, and close examinations of nature is not for the faint of heart and Gluck, unshockingly, does it masterfully. This collection gives you an intricate outline, but leaves you to fill in the rest. like she says “my own taste dictates accuracy without garrulousness” (53), but it’s brillant, drolly, and exact.

the idea that “does it matter where the birds go? Does it even matter / what species they are? / They leave here, that’s the point,/ first their bodies, then their sad cries. And from that moment, cease to exist for us./// You must learn to think of our passion that way./ Each kiss was real, then/ each kiss left the face of the earth” (41), has changed my perception of birds indelibly.

[Héctor Méndez Gómez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Después de haber leído la Odisea venir casualmente a este poemario de Louise Glück ha sido una experiencia interesante y satisfactoria. Me gusta la forma en que Glück utiliza personajes de la Odisea para hablar de temas como la familia, las relaciones entre parejas, entre otras cosas. Un poemario que te hace volver al gran clásico de la literatura y que reflexiona sobre uno de los tantos temas que en él se tratan.