Thoughts on The Wild Iris

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.

The Wild Iris: Flowers, Gluck, and God

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.

Gluck: A Breath Of Fresh Air

Gluck has many voices within this book, The Wild Iris. There is the voice of the narrator, which is the most obvious, and there are presumably flowers talking, and also the voice of “God”. This leaves room for a lot of different perspectives on belief and spirituality. In “Snowdrops” on page 6, it reads, “I did not expect to survive, / earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect / to waken again.” This makes it obvious it is the grass or a flower talking, blooming again after a long winter. This is one voice, and the second I want to talk about is “God’s” voice. On page 15, the poem, “Retreating Wind” opens with, “When I made you, I loved you. / Now I pity you. / I gave you all you needed: bed of earth, blanket of blue air.” God made people, and now instead of loving, he pities our “small talking” souls. Gluck is giving a voice to God, which is a voice no one has ever heard before. Same with the voices of flowers—I know it’s something I’ve never seen in poetry before. These different kind of perspectives gives a surreal kind of feeling to the book, knowing that these voices are unique. Then, even with this voice of God, Gluck’s narration shows that she is having trouble believing in Him. “Once I believed in you,” she says on page 36, “I planted a fig tree… / It was a test: if the tree lived, / it would mean you existed. / By this logic, you do not exist.” I think this is an interesting quote in itself, because she is trying to use nature to prove God’s existence.

There is such a strong connection to nature in this collection, the biggest reason, obviously, is the title of the book. I decided to look up what the connotations of “Iris” are, and I found that Iris is a messenger of the Gods in Greek Mythology. This was a huge discovery for me, and suddenly, I understand the title much more. I take this to mean that nature is trying to speak to the higher powers, which is Gluck’s intention throughout this collection of poems. In “The Jacob’s Ladder”, a flower speaks, saying, “Trapped in the earth, / wouldn’t you too want to go to heaven?” It seems to me this flower can’t speak to God, just humans, because this flower “desire[s] / knowledge of paradise.”(24). Because we have a perspective of a flower and nature, it’s like we’re seeing three different levels in this collection: nature being the bottom level, or the base, humans are the middle, and God is the top level, presumably in heaven. Since nature is two levels away from God, it is trying its hardest to speak to the humans to get its message across.

I can’t figure out if Gluck wanted readers to think she was atheist, or a “believer”, let’s just call it. Because throughout the collection, Gluck is very much debating the existence of God, but then she has poems written in God’s voice. I’m not sure if she just wants the reader to come to his or her own conclusions, or maybe there really is some kind of method to her madness. The readers are left to their own opinion. But one thing is for sure, there is no mistaking the meaning behind Gluck’s poems. One thing that sets her apart from all the other poets we’ve read, is that the meaning is pretty much laid out for you. This is very much unlike Armantrout, which was the last poet we read. Gluck was a breath of fresh air.

Emily M's Response to Gluck

Reading The Wild Iris was an interesting experience because of the choices Gluck made in her writing. From the title it was clear that nature would be a predominate theme throughout, however after reading the first section it became even more evident that nature was in everything she wrote. The garden setting becomes a home for her readers as they are introduced to the unspoken thoughts of the inhabitants, each plant becomes personified and gives us a glimpse at their lives. “Snowdrops” on page 6 shows the desperate state in which these flowers find themselves in during the winter, “I did not expect to survive,/earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect/ to waken again, to feel/ in damp earth my body/ able to respond again, remembering.” These very real human feelings and thoughts are also used in all of Gluck’s poems and are what make the impossible conversations understandable and relatable. Superficially, the garden poems are a discussion between the plants and the gardener but going below the surface, they are about relationships of all kinds.

One of the most common relationships Gluck writes about is that between a higher power (presumably God), and humans. A number of her poems are titled “Matins” and “Vespers” which are times of prayer in Catholicism. In these poems, Gluck again has impossible conversations, this time between God and humans. “I am not to speak to you/ in the personal way. Much/ has passed between us. Or/ was it always only/ on the one side?” This poem “Matins” (13) is the perfect example of the uneasy relationship between humans and God that is shown throughout the book. Gluck’s readers come to expect the back and forth that she has created by titling the piece as a time of prayer but posing a question that would nullify the need for prayer. Her uncertainty about religion and God can be interpreted in most of her poems. She shares her doubts and frustrations about God, but gives the impression that she believed in him at one point, and is now trying to wrap her head around it all. “Vespers” on page 36 says it quite bluntly “Once I believed in you/…It was a test: if the tree lived/ I would mean you existed.” Her frustrations are not the only ones voiced however, poems sometimes take the voice of God, sharing what she believes he must be thinking such as in the poem “September Twilight.” In the lines “I’m tired of you, chaos/ of the living world-/ I can only extend myself/ for so long to a living thing.” here God’s irritation with the limits of humans, along with their flaws becomes the center idea, and it is used several other times in her work.

The voices Gluck creates are what make the book, because they are relatable to her readers. These voices say the things we have thought, and describe the emotions that we have felt. The idea of having impossible conversations combined with relatable subjects makes the book more interesting because it adds dimension, allowing a reader to take it for face value or go deeper if they desire. Gluck has a presence in each of the poems just as Merwin did, by giving us direct access to thoughts and inner conflicts. However, her life was not an open book like Merwin, she gave us access to her emotions and thoughts in a specific moment without any back-story, and this too made a difference in the book as a whole.

Not So Wild

Coming in succession behind Armantrout, Levis, and Notley, Gluck’s poetry was almost painfully easy for me. Unlike the other poets (Merwin excepted, sort of), Gluck hands her readers the meaning and tell them to do something with it. Notley invited readers to experience meaning alongside Alette, Levis dares readers to unpack his collages and make something of them, Armantrout hands the reader a puzzle to play with and create meaning and even Merwin (who is more straightforward) gives readers a sense of meaning and an idea and lets them decide what it means to them individually. Gluck tells us what she means.

In “Matins” (25), the speaker is again in the garden, an obvious Edenic motif that runs throughout the book, but this time is not planting but “pretending/ to be weeding.” The speaker then proceeds to describe everything she does in her garden in the morning (matins), all of which has a clear metaphor, which she even tells us: “I’m looking for courage, for some evidence/ my life will change.” The “symbolic leaf” she is thinking of pulling cannot be anything other than a sign, which has the convenient synonyms: evidence, symbol, assurance, mark, proof, etc. Well, if we weren’t sure before that one of her main themes is understanding of self and life, we know now that it is. It is also completely clear that the “you” the speaker is talking to is both us, the readers, and God, who appears in nearly every other poem as a definitive otherworldly all-powerful being. If there is another all-powerful creator of earth and life and humanity other than the Christian God, I apologize, but it is abundantly clear that this is the “you” she means. Her reversal of meaning at the end comes in the form of a question: “Or was the point always/ to continue without a sign?” This last sentence tells us two things. First, that the previous interpretation of assurance that her life can change (presumably for the better) in the garden (Eden) where she talks to god is correct and second, that her questioning and our questioning that such a thing can or does exist is valid, and that this is what the poem wants us to think about.

Ultimately Gluck’s poetry functions as an intimate view into the speaker’s (ahem, her) spiritual journey and mindset while exploring God and faith in the rural Vermontian landscape she paints for us. We are simply watching instead of experiencing or sharing. I think this still gives meaning to the reader, but in a me: teacher, you: student sort of way that wasn’t present in any other poet we’ve read so far.

Callie's take on Gluck

Louise Glück, in her book The Wild Iris, works with the changing seasons as well as the changing time through the placement of the individual poems. For example the very first poem, “The Wild Iris,” is a poem with the voice of a wild iris. This iris, which is a perennial plant that grows from a bulb at the beginning of summer, tells its gardener that it knows what death is like since it dies away during the winter months and then grows again when it begins to rain: “that which you call death/I remember.” (1) The following poem, “Matins,” is a poem related to morning prayers or services. This poem also deals with spring as the poet uses the “hollow stems of the white daffodils,” (2) which are flowers that grow in the spring time and are symbolic of spring. Further into the book Gluck’s poems turn to summer themes: “Midsummer--/everything is possible,” (32) from the poem “Heaven and Earth,” as well as daytime: “as the fire of the summer sun/truly does stall/being entirely contained/by the burning/maples/at the garden’s border.” (32) Next, the poems turn to evening as in “Vespers” where the poet is talking to God in an evening prayer, which is what Vespers are: “the stoic lambs turning/silver in twilight,” (38) and the end of summer: “the field itself, in August dotted/with wild chicory and aster.” (38) And finally the last poem of the book, “The White Lilies,” is set in the evening: “here/they linger in the summer evening/and the evening turns/cold with their terror.” (63) The book also closes with the poet putting her garden to sleep as the summer is overtaken by the cold autumnal weather: “It doesn’t matter to me/how many summers I live to return:/this one summer we have entered eternity.” (63) The Lily is telling her gardener that even though she will die off for the winter she will one day return.

Glück’s poetry is also filled with the lyrical “I” but who is speaking changes from poem to poem and even changes within a poem at times. There are three main beings who speak in Gluck’s poems: God, human, and plant. The first, God, is apparent in the poem “Clear Morning” in which God is speaking to human kind: “I’ve watched you long enough.” (7) It is clear that God is speaking because He would have to speak “through vehicles only, in/details of earth, as you prefer,” (7) in order for mankind to understand His meanings. Other poems are written in first person from the point of view of a human such as in “Matins” which is a prayer from a human to God: “I asked you to be human—I am no needier/than other people” (13). And the poem can be from a plant’s point of view as in “Lamium” where a plant, a Lamium, speaks to a human: “The sun hardly touches me./Sometimes I see it in early spring, rising very far away.” (5) Lastly, the point of view can change within a poem as in the poem “The White Lilies” where the beginning is spoken in the point of view of a narrator with no specific “I” but most likely human: “As a man and woman make/ a garden between them like/ a bed of stars,” (63) and then there is a shift to the plant, the white lilies, speaking to their gardener, the human from the beginning: “I felt your two hands/bury me to release its splendor.” (63)

Louise Glück’s poetry is unique in that it usually has a surface meaning which is great because it doesn’t take much time or knowledge to get something out of it, but it also has a deeper meaning when you look closer at it and pick it apart. I enjoyed her poetry for this because even the poems I didn’t look at closely I still got something out of them.

John's Response to Levis

The dark, intelligent, moving images of Larry Levis’ poetry is oh so alluring for many reasons I do not understand. Many of Levis’ poetry is about death and the understanding of death, yet he also gracefully puts what I would consider hope in his poems. Levis may have a very aggressive nature towards poetry but he also adds many intellectual references to his works. I believe combining these three features of hope, aggression, and intellectuality produce very well rounded thought provoking poetry. Levis’ “Elegy with a Bridle in its Hand” even though a much easier read then most, certainly has moments of confusion. In the fifth and sixth stanzas Levis writes, “Deity is in the details & we are among other details & we long to be teased out of ourselves. And become all of them” I took these several lines as an explanation of why Levis writes. This I believe is the hopefulness in which Levis writes. If a deity is among the details, and according to Levis, we are among the details then someone among us must be a deity. When Levis says, “we long to be teased out of ourselves” he means we long to stand out from the rest of the masses.

“Boy in Video Arcade” another poem of Levis, is simple in form yet ambiguous in meaning. The poem’s line structure is quite irregular. The irregularity, however I believe adds a certain flow to the reading of the poem. Every stanza seems to be a different image Levis is trying to depict. The first lines, “Some see a lake of fire at the end of it, or heaven’s guesswork, something always to be sketched” immediately made the impression the poem was going to be dreamlike or deal with surreal images. Because Levis toys with the theme of death and absence, I perceived this poem as dark because of the ambiguity of the images. The images themselves may not be dark in nature, but the poem considered as a whole, thematically is dark.

Overall I very much enjoyed Levis. Of the poets we have read so far I believe Larry Levis made us think the most.