Congratulations Louise Glück!

 I know this is a bit overdue, and I did make a post about it on Red Poppy Poetry's Instagram (@redpoppypoetry), but Louise Glück recently won the 2020 Nobel Prize for literature! If you didn't know, Glück is one of my favorite poets and has tremendously influenced who I am as a writer and poet today. In fact, her famous poem, "The Red Poppy," is what inspired the name for Red Poppy Poetry. 

Glück is the first American woman to win this award in 27 years, and was commended for "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." This is truly a well-deserved and amazing achievement.

In celebration, I wanted to share one of my favorite poems by Glück, called "The Melancholy Assistant," from one of her most recent collections of poetry, Faithful and Virtuous Night. The entire collection is genuinely a stunning work of art in which Glück contemplates the meaning and purpose of life in the inevitable confrontation with death. I strongly recommend reading it. Anyhow, here is "The Melancholy Assistant":

The Melancholy Assistant

I had an assistant, but he was melancholy,

so melancholy it interfered with his duties.

He was to open my letters, which were few,

and answer those that required answers,

leaving a space at the bottom for my signature.

And under my signature, his own initials,

in which formality, at the outset, he took great pride.

When the phone rang, he was to say

his employer was at the moment occupied,

and offer to convey a message.

After several months, he came to me.

Master, he said (which was his name for me),

I have become useless to you; you must turn me out.

And I saw that he had packed his bags

and was prepared to go, though it was night

and the snow was falling. My heart went out to him.

Well, I said, if you cannot perform these few duties,

what can you do? And he pointed to his eyes,

which were full of tears. I can weep, he said.

Then you must weep for me, I told him,

as Christ wept for mankind.

Still he was hesitant.

Your life is enviable, he said;

what must I think of when I cry?

And I told him of the emptiness of my days,

and of time, which was running out,

and of the meaninglessness of my achievement,

and as I spoke I had the odd sensation

of once more feeling something

for another human being—

He stood completely still.

I had lit a small fire in the fireplace;

I remember hearing the contented murmurs of the dying logs—

Master, he said, you have given

meaning to my suffering.

It was a strange moment.

The whole exchange seemed both deeply fraudulent

and profoundly true, as though such words as emptiness and

     meaninglessness

had stimulated some remembered emotion

which now attached itself to this occasion and person.

His face was radiant. His tears glinted

red and gold in the firelight.

Then he was gone.

Outside the snow was falling,

the landscape changing into a series

of bland generalizations

marked here and there with enigmatic

shapes where the snow had drifted.

The street was white, the various trees were white—

Changes of the surface, but is that not really

all we ever see?