Quick Hit Before a Family Visit

On our way to Quincy to see my family today, but I wanted to thank everyone who has been in touch with TBG and I for their generous support. I'm very lucky to have a community — both corporeal and digital — with whom I can share such joyful and momentous occasions. Thank you all.


• A quick note for your Sunday: William Logan reviews Louise Glück's new book A Village Life at The New York Times. It is hard to gauge whether the review is 'positive' or 'negative' in the simplest sense, but there are a few moments of really high praise, such as when he compares Glück favorably to Rilke: 'At her discomforting best, she reminds me of no poet more than Rilke, who was also a case of nerves and who also lived close to the old myths. Though her comments about him have been hedged, of all the Americans now writing Glück is the closest to being his secret mythographer.' How complimentary! Although I think that the registers of language that Glück employs are not nearly as diverse as the language used by Rilke.

Logan does well to point out that Glück settled into the style of her 'dotage' early. I have often thought of her as a poet who writes one poem or one type of poem over and over. It's a reasonably good poem, but her range as a poet has been limited regardless. Glück's new collection apparently makes a significant attempt to broaden that approach into a more narrative style, a piecemeal set of scenes. Logan compares it to film, and writes that reading her poems are 'like watching a black-and-white movie; the landscape is drawn in chiaroscuro. For a poetic world to be this narrow, the poet’s desires must be powerfully austere.' It's a vivid and appropriate metaphor; art-house noir comes to mind. However, I try not one to make claims about the interior life of a poet based on their work: reading through poetry into the poet's psyche is a dangerous game, prone to inevitable failures.

As one can always expect from a William Logan piece, the review has already stirred up detractors and controversy around the internet — one commenter notes, 'It isn't legitimate to critique a poet primarily on the basis of tone or attitude. If Logan feels she fails to express that tone effectively, OK. But he doesn't say that. Logan isn't reviewing her book, he's competing with it. Gluck "beadily watches her prey"? No, that's Logan.'

I actually thought that particular extended metaphor ('Every desire in Glück is cautious, every pleasure suspect. She’s almost a feral poet, beadily watching her prey before making a devastating remark — her favorite form of greeting is the ambush.') quite accurate, if somewhat unnecessarily elaborate. Yet those elaborations are what make Logan's reviews entertaining, and are the fodder over which we all then argue and bicker. Not a bad thing; and, it may just be the point of a newspaper review. I'm on the fence.