We're absolutely delighted the US poet Louise Glück, published in the UK by Carcanet Press, has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Glück is the first American woman to win the Nobel in 27 years and the second poet in almost a decade, since Tomas Tranströmer in 2011. The Swedish Academy praised Glück's "unmistakable poetic voice, that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal". Pared down, lucid and honed, Glück's poems distill the human condition with a quiet intelligence: "At the end of my suffering / there was a door". In 'Snowdrops', below, her poetry offers hope of future healing, reminding us all to risk joy "in the raw wind of this new world".
Louise Glűck, born in 1943, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection The Wild Iris. She has published 12 books of poetry, and a book of essays on poetry. She teaches at Yale University as Writer in Residence and in the Creative Writing Program of Boston University. She was appointed the US Poet Laureate from 2003–2004.
PBS Members can pre-order copies of her latest collection Faithful and Virtuous Night here.