Louise Glück’s Late Style

POEMS 1962–2012, an omnibus collection of Louise Glück’s eleven previously published books of poetry, ran to more than six hun­dred pages. The heft of it was startling because Glück is not a prolix poet. But, after fifty years, things add up.

What could follow it? The volume itself, a testament between two covers, must have been intimidating to the poet. Something to be proud of, but also an intimation of mortality, and perhaps an omen of decline. In “October,” she had written: “The light has changed; / middle C is tuned darker now.”