WASHINGTON: Louise Gluck, an American poet famous for her austere and distinctive writing that delved into themes of mythology and the shared human experience, passed away at 80.
A spokeswoman from Yale University confirmed the sad news to AFP on Friday. Gluck, a native of New York, had most recently held a position as a poetry professor at Yale.
The New York Times reported that she died from cancer, and Richard Deming, her friend and former Yale colleague, confirmed her death at her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 2020, Louise Gluck was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming the 16th woman to receive this prestigious award. She admired previous Nobel laureates like William Butler Yeats (1923) and T.S. Eliot (1948).
Her poetry held a unique power, as she once noted, “The unsaid, for me, exerts great power,” a sentiment expressed in her collection of essays on poetry, “Proofs and Theories.”
Her long-time editor, Jonathan Galassi, paid tribute to Gluck, saying, “Louise Gluck’s poetry gives voice to our untrusting but unquenchable thirst for understanding and connection in an often-uncertain world. Her work is timeless.”
Her poetry drew inspiration from subjects such as a child’s perspective of the world and the simple beauty of nature, interwoven with the rich narratives of mythology.
Her 2020 Nobel Prize, presented at her home due to the ceremony’s cancellation amid the COVID-19 pandemic, recognized her “unmistakable poetic voice that, with austere beauty, makes individual existence universal.”
In 1993, she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for her collection “The Wild Iris,” an achievement that stood out despite her not completing college.
She was born and grew up in Long Island, New York, although her father’s family moved to America in the early 20th century, having her origins in Hungarian Jewish history.
Gluck also won the 2014 National Book Award for her book “Faithful and Virtuous Night” and held the position of US Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004. —APP
