Louise Glűck was the author of twelve books of poems and two collections of essays. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Her other awards included the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She taught at Yale University and Stanford University and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in October 2023 at the age of 80.

The GuardianSaturday 6th March 1999 Proofs and Theories, by LouiseGlück (Carcanet, £9.95) A very attractive, murmured collection of essays on poets, by one whowrites poetry herself, but charmingly insists: "I use the word 'writer'deliberately. 'Poet' must be usedcautiously; it names an aspirationnot an occupation." Glück swiftlydemolishes the idea that a poet'swork can be 'courageous', andinterleaves Milton and Keats in anexcellent essay entitled 'AgainstSincerity'.Her recurrent subjects,in a relaxed style that mixes close rhythmical and syntactical analysis with little gems of biographical anecdote, are Plath, Berrymanand especially Eliot. Possible the best piece is the one in which she describes herself hitting a tremendous glassy wall, with the great first line:"It never occurred to me that I wasn't going to write poetry until I read WallaceStevens."

Louise Glűck was the author of twelve books of poems and two collections of essays. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Her other awards included the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She taught at Yale University and Stanford University and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in October 2023 at the age of 80.

The GuardianSaturday 6th March 1999 Proofs and Theories, by LouiseGlück (Carcanet, £9.95) A very attractive, murmured collection of essays on poets, by one whowrites poetry herself, but charmingly insists: "I use the word 'writer'deliberately. 'Poet' must be usedcautiously; it names an aspirationnot an occupation." Glück swiftlydemolishes the idea that a poet'swork can be 'courageous', andinterleaves Milton and Keats in anexcellent essay entitled 'AgainstSincerity'.Her recurrent subjects,in a relaxed style that mixes close rhythmical and syntactical analysis with little gems of biographical anecdote, are Plath, Berrymanand especially Eliot. Possible the best piece is the one in which she describes herself hitting a tremendous glassy wall, with the great first line:"It never occurred to me that I wasn't going to write poetry until I read WallaceStevens."

Louise Glűck was the author of twelve books of poems and two collections of essays. She received the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." Her other awards included the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Bollingen Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She taught at Yale University and Stanford University and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in October 2023 at the age of 80.

The GuardianSaturday 6th March 1999 Proofs and Theories, by LouiseGlück (Carcanet, £9.95) A very attractive, murmured collection of essays on poets, by one whowrites poetry herself, but charmingly insists: "I use the word 'writer'deliberately. 'Poet' must be usedcautiously; it names an aspirationnot an occupation." Glück swiftlydemolishes the idea that a poet'swork can be 'courageous', andinterleaves Milton and Keats in anexcellent essay entitled 'AgainstSincerity'.Her recurrent subjects,in a relaxed style that mixes close rhythmical and syntactical analysis with little gems of biographical anecdote, are Plath, Berrymanand especially Eliot. Possible the best piece is the one in which she describes herself hitting a tremendous glassy wall, with the great first line:"It never occurred to me that I wasn't going to write poetry until I read WallaceStevens."