The Wild Iris, by Louise Gluck was a text filled with imagery of wild flowers. I.E. most of the poems in the text not only had the title of a flower most also had flowers as having voices The text also contained two other speakers apart from when the text has flowers speaking (such as the lamium poem) those are God and Gluck herself. I honestly must confess that the poems with direct god references (such as god speaking directly) made me a little uncomfortable, not being a religious person. A good example of god speaking is found on pg 20 in the poem “April” the poem opens by saying “No one’s despair is like my despair-“ the poem goes on to say how god is more unhappy than unhappy people because he created us and humans do not love him or each other. Another good example of god being disappointed with us is found on page 58 in the poem Lullaby where he is again disappointed with man for not loving or caring for each other or god.
Another central theme in the text is that of Louise Glucks’ personal battle with cancer; while the text isn’t directly referencing Gluck laying in a hospital bed sick with cancer, the text does have poems that represent her struggle with the illness. An example of this is found on page 56 in the poem vespers. This poem talks about how it is fruitless to plant a tomatoe plant in the early fall when winter will only kill it before it matures, and how if her life is almost over (presumably because of the illness) than why is it worth living out because she can already see the end. Pg 62 Gold Lily is about glucks’ dying moments calling out to god and when he doesn’t answer she questions if you do not answer than are you not the father that has been there all my life? A question that is symbolic of Gluck questioning her faith when her battle was the worst with cancer.
I found while reading this text that even though the poems do not create a dense poem like some of the Larry Levis we read, having a dictionary or the internet handy to look up the meanings of the wild flowers discussed in the text, helped a lot in ascertaining meaning from this text. A good example of this would be the poem Lamium, if you don’t look up the meaning of Lamium and learn it’s a plant that likes cold dark places then the cold dark imagery in the poem lamium is confusing. With the direct god references or not this is a good book to pick up and read as it contains a different viewpoint of the world, one that is from a gardener (naturalistic) with a perspective that is at times cynical and other times hopeful of the world.
I completely agree that the theme of God is very prominent in Gluck’s work and it also made me a little uncomfortable. Sometimes I didn’t even understand the titles of the poems, if they were referencing something to do with religion. I have never really gotten involved with religion, so my knowledge of the subject was wildly limited. I think that because of this limit, I wasn’t able to fully connect with the poems, but I understood much better after our class discussions, that not all the poems were about a connection with God, but sometimes were about a disbelief in God. That was sad to me, although I am not a religious person, I feel sad that someone who used to have this strong belief could be losing that faith because of what has happened in her life.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that if you do not have an extensive knowledge of flowers, you may have had a hard time reading or understanding to poems completely. I found it much easier to understand what Gluck meant by something when she used a flower reference and I could look it up. Without the ability to research the flower names, I would have been even more lost than I was before.
Agree...had to look up Latium.
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