American Originality

A luminous collection of essays from one of our most original and influential poets

Five decades after her debut poetry collection, Firstborn, Louise Gluck is a towering figure in American letters. Written with the same probing, analytic control that has long distinguished her poetry, American Originality is Gluck's second book of essays--her first, Proofs and Theories, won the 1993 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction. Gluck's moving and disabusing lyricism is on full display in this decisive new collection.

From its opening pages, American Originality forces readers to consider contemporary poetry and its demigods in radical, unconsoling, and ultimately very productive ways. Determined to wrest ample, often contradictory meaning from our current literary discourse, Gluck comprehends and destabilizes notions of "narcissism" and "genius" that are unique to the American literary climate. This includes erudite analyses of the poets who have interested her throughout her own career, such as Rilke, Pinsky, Chiasson, and Dobyns, and introductions to the first books of poets like Dana Levin, Peter Streckfus, Spencer Reece, and Richard Siken. Forceful, revealing, challenging, and instructive, American Originality is a seminal critical achievement.

O colectie luminoasa de eseuri de la unul dintre cei mai originali si influenti poeti ai nostri La cinci decenii dupa colectia ei de poezie de debut, Firstborn, Louise Gluck este o figura impunatoare in literele americane. Scrisa cu acelasi control analitic, care i-a distins multa vreme poezia, American Originality este a doua carte de eseuri a lui Gluck - prima ei, Proofs and Theories, a castigat in 1993 premiul PEN/Martha Albrand pentru prima nonfictiune.