Louise Glück

Louise Glück (1943 - ) was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. The recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, Glück was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. In the fall of 2003, she was appointed as the Library of Congress’s twelfth poet laureate consultant in poetry. She served as judge of the Yale Series of Younger Poets from 2003 to 2010. And  The Wild Iris (Ecco Press, 1992) received the Pulitzer Prize. Currently, Glück is a writer-in-residence at Yale University.

Vespers

End of August. Heat

like a tent over

John's garden. And some things

have the nerve to be getting started,

clusters of tomatoes, stands

of late lilies—optimism

of the great stalks—imperial

gold and silver: but why

start anything

so close to the end?

Tomatoes that will never ripen, lilies

winter will kill, that won't

come back in spring. Or

are you thinking

I spend too much time

looking ahead, like

an old woman wearing

sweaters in summer;

are you saying I can

flourish, having

no hope

of enduring? Blaze of the red cheek, glory

of the open throat, white,

spotted with crimson.

— Louise Glück