It took me a little while to warm up to Gluck’s style of writing, but by the end of The Wild Iris I had grown to like her uses of imagery. Just like Armantrout, Gluck wrote poems that the average reader would classify as “normal poetry.” She wrote with a form that doesn’t seem daunting to most people, a familiar usage of line breaks and punctuation. I liked that her poems weren’t necessarily bogged down in allusions, but metaphorically deep at the same time. Something that I also found particularly interesting was her many uses of cycles.
One of the more obvious cycles in the book is the progression through the seasons. The book starts out in early spring, with the “end of suffering” at the end of winter, and poems with titles such as “April” and “End of Winter” itself. The poems then move into warmer months, where in Midsummer, “everything is possible.” Autumn hits with a poem titled “End of Summer,” where the “void” of colder weather is soon approaching. The last poem in the book, “The White Lilies,” heralds in winter. This poem recognizes the end of the cycle, the “one summer [they] have entered eternity;” the narrator also knows that he or she will return again come spring.
Even many of the flowers in the titles of Gluck’s poems follow this cycle. Scilla normally bloom in early spring; white lilies bloom throughout the winter.
Looking at the titles of the poems, it’s also evident that Gluck is writing about the cycle of an average day. Before the poems start to get into summer, there are seven poems titled “Matins,” or a morning prayer that should properly begin at midnight, but can also start at daybreak. These prayers are usually said at the true start to the day, the beginning of the cycle. As the warmer weather starts to wane in her poems, the day does as well; ten poems are titled “Vespers,” an evening service. This is where her religiousness first comes into significance: if one did not know the terms for these prayers, or wasn’t in a place where they could look them up, the meaning would be lost.
Sometimes the cycles intertwine. In her poem “Ipomoea,” Gluck writes of how she believes God is leaving her; she is “not to be permitted to ascend ever again,” to gain understanding of God’s word. The Ipomoea is the more scientific term for a morning glory; these flowers are in full bloom only in the morning, closing up during warmer parts of the day. Each day, this cycle continues: bloom, curl, bloom, curl. It seems like her religious beliefs wax and wane with the seasons as well; it’s clear towards the end of the book that she is doubting her beliefs: God has “drawn a line” through her name.” This part actually made me think of something else that has to do with the cycle of the seasons. In Judaism, a week after the New Year there is the holiday of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On this day, we fast and spend most of the day in synagogue, repenting for our sins in the hopes that God will write our names into the Book of Life, so that upon death we will be allowed into heaven.
I think you make a really good point when you say that Gluck's poetry is not "necessarily bogged down in allusions." To me, this was perhaps the one thing that really made her poetry accessible. After experiencing Levis' poetry and struggling with his dense use of allusions, it is a relief not to have to look every other word or phrase up in an encyclopedia. But, as you say, the poems still prove to be deep and meaningful beyond the surface level.
ReplyDeleteI also spent a good amount of time thinking about the cycles that show up in her poetry. The book as a whole becomes so much stronger when all of these cycles come together. I mean, considering that each poem is about a flower in some way, it makes sense that the whole collection reflect the cyclical pattern of everything in nature, of plants, gardening, seasons, etc. Without the multiple layers of cycling that occurs here, we would lose much of the bigger picture that I think Gluck was going for. She creates this one, big, unified picture of nature, paying homage to different kind of plants and flowers while also achieving something greater, which I think you talk about really nicely here.
I really like your analysis of cycles and seasons in Gluck's work. So much of human life and plant life involves cycles. We are born, develop physically and mentally, have experiences, grow old, and eventually die. Flowers are planted, tended to, they sprout, bud, then bloom, flourish, and finally wither and die as well. Gluck definitely pays attention to a process in which humans, God, and flowers all experience and the interconnectedness of these processes. Even if she questions them she does do a wonderful job reflecting and portraying them. I her use of seasons and the set up of her book is interesting as well, as you pointed out. Almost every flower requires a certain atmosphere to grow making it impossible to flourish in certain seasons. This might be stretching but perhaps she is commenting on the fact that we all have certain physical and emotional requirements and maintenance to live and therefore God is almost like humanity's gardener? I think that needs a bit more sorting out but it is interesting to think about.
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