Celebrated for her nine previous volumes of poetry, she has gathered many honors in her career, including an appointment as United States poet laureate in 2003 and a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for 'The Wild Iris.' But 'Averno' may be her masterpiece. Glück has earned a place in that distinguished company of chthonic poets. In 'The Aeneid,' Virgil catalogs some of the monsters (Gorgons, Harpies, the Chimera) and other fearsome figures gathered there: Grief, Disease, Age, Dread and Discord, all of whom, in various guises, make appearances in Louise Glück's brilliant new collection, 'Averno.'īefore and after Virgil, a long line of poets, epic and lyric, have chronicled perilous journeys to the underworld, traveling deeply to bring back its true booty not Hades' gems, but the darkly glittering poems inspired by his queen, Persephone. The formal entrance to the underworld was in a nearby cave from there to Cocytus, the black river where Charon the ferryman waited, the shades of the dead and the rare living visitor passed through a terrifying anteroom. Surrounded by gloomy forests, it was a mephitic lake, the sulfurous vapors repelling all creatures that might stray near. For the ancient Romans, it ran deeper all the way to the underworld. To the geologist, it is nearly two miles in circumference and 200 feet deep. She sets out to examine the 'rift in the human soul / which was not constructed to belong / entirely to life,' and asks how a soul that survives its bodily existence can possibly find solace, knowing that life's myriad delights - 'the red berries of the mountain ash' and 'the birds' night migrations' - are gone forever.LAGO D'AVERNO (Avernus in Latin) is a volcanic crater lake, 10 miles west of Naples. The New York Times says 'Glück takes up her own challenge, employing it to explore concepts like 'mind' and 'soul' with a fresh, often acidulous, perspective. Each part has five chapters.Īverno has frequently been referred to as a 'modern classic' due to its everlasting topics and themes. The collection is divided into two parts. There are eighteen poems in the collection, and several are extended pieces with distinct, brief sections.

Some reviewers praised Glück's non-resolution of these tensions. The Greek myth of Demeter's daughter Persephone and her marriage to Hades is a recurring topic in the collection, as are the themes of oblivion and death, soul and body, love and isolation. It was a National Book Award Finalist for Poetry that year.Īverno or Lake Avernus is a lake west of Naples that the Romans mythologized as the entrance to the underworld.

Averno is Louise Glück's tenth collection of poetry published in 2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Averno by Louise Glück