Course Title: The Many Voices of Louise Glück
Instructor: Nathan Blansett, A&S ’21 (MFA)
Brought to you by Odyssey
January 31 - March 7, 2026
Saturdays, 3:00PM - 5:00PM ET (6 Sessions)
Virtual via Zoom
Course Description: In 2020, when the Swedish Academy named the American poet Louise Glück as the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, they cited her “unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” Glück’s consistent themes (as she put it, “the great human subjects: time which breeds loss, desire, the world’s beauty”) earned her many honors and many readers, yet her thirteen books of poems showcase a protean, ever-changing way of writing. This course will reckon with the lasting gift of Glück’s many unmistakable voices.
Over six weeks, we’ll proceed chronologically through Glück’s oeuvre, briefly attending to the strained performances of Firstborn (1968), her debut she came to disavow. We’ll then turn our attention to the mythic and haunted personae of her more sophisticated early books, like The House on Marshland (1975) and Descending Figure (1980). Afterward, we’ll compare and contrast the astringent Ararat (1990) with the dazzling polyphony of The Wild Iris (1993) and the real tragicomedy that is Meadowlands (1997), alongside other books from Glück’s middle period, including Vita Nova (1999) and Averno (2006). We’ll finish our course closely reading Glück’s late work—from the meditative and novelistic A Village Life (2009) to the spare and strange Winter Recipes from the Collective (2021), her final volume, where “the world goes by, / all the worlds, each more beautiful than the last.”
Our journey through Glück’s poems will be punctuated by relevant selections from her literary criticism and autobiographical prose. In addition, there will be opportunities to create original work inspired by what we read, shared voluntarily for peer and instructor feedback.
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