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Summary: Gluck Book Over-rated
Review: The Wild Iris has garnered much praise but its poetry is precious and pretentious. Gluck has been one of the most over-praised poets in America. Time will reshuffle the deck, and then future readers will wonder what the fuss was all about. Her early work can still make an impact; there is a haunting, understated quality to it that makes reading it somewhat pleasurable. There's little of that to be found in The Wild Iris, however.
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Summary: Wild Iris - awesome
Review: The works at first appear dark and daunting, after some contemplation one sees life in a new light, of hope, and connection, renewal, and rebirth! Louise Gluck speaks to us all!
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Summary: The culmination of Gluck's writing
Review: This book is amazing and well-deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it received. If you enjoyed "The Meadowlands" or are a fan of Gluck in general, then you will find "The Wild Iris" an amazing read, more accessible, yet more personal than her other books. From the "azure fountain" rising up from the center of her life to the girl who stands in the midsummer doorway, her poems are honest, complex, and poignant. If you are a true fan of verse and language, you must read this.
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Summary: The culmination of Gluck's writing
Review: This book is amazing and well-deserving of the Pulitzer Prize it received. If you enjoyed "The Meadowlands" or are a fan of Gluck in general, then you will find "The Wild Iris" an amazing read, more accessible, yet more personal than her other books. From the "azure fountain" rising up from the center of her life to the girl who stands in the midsummer doorway, her poems are honest, complex, and poignant. If you are a true fan of verse and language, you must read this.
Rating:
Summary: Necessary
Review: This book is as necessary to contemporary poetry as breathing is to human life. It is so much more than a book about flowers or gardens; it is metaphor and voice at its absolute best. If the reader doesn't like this book, it's likely because he or she is unwilling to face the complex humanity that it reflects.
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Summary: Pulitzer Winner
Review: This is the second book of Gluck's that I have read (also read The Seven Ages), and I'm not very impressed with her. Sure she has won all kinds of awards and accolades, but I have to disagree with the academy here. Her work isn't bad, just mediocre and rather uninteresting, though this book is better than The Seven Ages. There were a few really good poems found within this collection. Not enough to really pull it off though. And this is the book that won the Pulitzer (which just goes to show you that though the Pulitzer is a well-respected prize, they generally award it to books that are NOT the most deserving). I suppose you have to read this book for yourself to understand, and who knows, maybe you'll be like so many others and like it.
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Summary: Excellent depiction of the fragility and true nature of life
Review: Wild Iris blooms with spiritual beauty in relationship to those on Earth, to God and heaven. Following the cycle of nature in her garden her soul transcends her flowers, through changing seasons. Her archaic word art impresses deep emotions. A nurturing garden yet filled with sadness, despair, grief Rebirth, Death. The ending of a life cycle.Each page turns as delicately as petals from flowering blossoms and as leaves of the birch flutter down. This collection of poems by Louise Gluck is much more than a beautiful and moving bouquet of irises, poppies, lillies, and daises . . . As rootstocks bind with Mother Earth Gluck's poetry speaks to God with deep spiritual connection. Transforming mind and soul. Transcending from Earth, the gift of nature--our life on Earth. We blossom with radiance from the sun's rays and the glow of moonbeams. Standing erect through the chill of evening snowfall and events of suffrage. Embrace faith to sustain the changing seasons And life cycles. The Wild Iris in mind, return to the garden of life with renewed tenderness. Her words embrace the reader in one sitting. Enjoy and re-read for Gluck has great talent in which she transforms her words into the same sheer beauty a wild iris possesses. She shares deep emotion for life and what it holds for the mortal and immortal. Her words form lovely images that color a spiritual garden. Gluck opens her heart offering an enriching experience and peaceful serenity. Thank you Louise Gluck for sharing your words of beauty depicting the fragility and true nature of life. (The non-poet will be inspired to write poetry after reading Gluck's anthology.)
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Summary: Human Emotions Brought to Life Through Flowers
Review: Wild Iris, a book of poems, which allows one to visualize the personification of human emotions as a metaphor of flowers. Louise Gluck author, has masterfully taken us on a journey where time lies between alpha and omega, with boundaries that circumscribe within the realms of heaven and earth. What better way to travel, than through the "eyes" of the flowers scattered throughout the gardens of the world. This metaphor, when applied as reflective analogies pertaining to the essence of life and human experiences, creatively bonds the writer with the reader as one entity, exploring the aftermath of conscious thoughts pondered for insightfil wisdom. As the speaker in most of her poems, Louise Gluck joins us in kinship with feelings of pain, conscious awareness, and eternal truths. Therefore, we are escorted with her through an imaginary garden of flowers as parallel partners of human spirits combined with similar thoughts of awareness. Once this relationship has articulately interwoven its self within our highest condition of natural development, better known as maturity, reality takes its rightful place. perhaps, this can be perceived as the art of surviving the processes of living. I found myself completely enticed, and captivated with this bouquet of flowers, strangely mated with the imagery of petals and sepals used as portraits to describe personal feelings of love, pain and psychological trauma. I find the poems of " The Wild Iris," to be brilliant, intimately filled with emotions, and insightful with heartfelt reflections regarding the complexities of emotional survival.
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