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Firstborn
This is the first collection of poems by Louise Glück, who was born in 1943 in New York. In 1967 she received a Rockefeller Foundation grant for her poetry.
Her poems deal in wastelands, the lost lives of cripples, the hopeless and loveless; yet her landscapes have a stern beauty, a mythic size that looms behind the everyday. Arid, merciless, stinging, yet full of life, these are strikingly original poems.
Her poems deal in wastelands, the lost lives of cripples, the hopeless and loveless; yet her landscapes have a stern beauty, a mythic size that looms behind the everyday. Arid, merciless, stinging, yet full of life, these are strikingly original poems.
53 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
21 people are currently reading
655 people want to read
About the author
Louise Glück
97 books2,187 followersAmerican poet Louise Elisabeth Glück served as poet laureate of the United States from 2003 to 2004.
Parents of Hungarian Jewish heritage reared her on Long Island. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and later Columbia University.
She was the author of twelve books of poetry, including: A Village Life (2009); Averno (2006), which was a finalist for The National Book Award; The Seven Ages (2001); Vita Nova (1999), which was awarded The New Yorker's Book Award in Poetry; Meadowlands (1996); The Wild Iris (1992), which received the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America; Ararat (1990), which received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. She also published a collection of essays, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
In 2001, Yale University awarded Louise Glück its Bollingen Prize in Poetry, given biennially for a poet's lifetime achievement in his or her art. Her other honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize (Wellesley, 1986), the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection, The Wild Iris . Glück is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award ( Triumph of Achilles ), the Academy of American Poet's Prize ( Firstborn ), as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Anniversary Medal (2000), and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2020, Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."
Glück also worked as a senior lecturer in English at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, served as a member of the faculty of the University of Iowa and taught at Goddard College in Vermont. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teached as the Rosencranz writer in residence at Yale University and in the creative writing program of Boston University.
Parents of Hungarian Jewish heritage reared her on Long Island. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and later Columbia University.
She was the author of twelve books of poetry, including: A Village Life (2009); Averno (2006), which was a finalist for The National Book Award; The Seven Ages (2001); Vita Nova (1999), which was awarded The New Yorker's Book Award in Poetry; Meadowlands (1996); The Wild Iris (1992), which received the Pulitzer Prize and the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America; Ararat (1990), which received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress. She also published a collection of essays, Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994), which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction.
In 2001, Yale University awarded Louise Glück its Bollingen Prize in Poetry, given biennially for a poet's lifetime achievement in his or her art. Her other honors include the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry, the Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize (Wellesley, 1986), the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection, The Wild Iris . Glück is the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award ( Triumph of Achilles ), the Academy of American Poet's Prize ( Firstborn ), as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Anniversary Medal (2000), and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2020, Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."
Glück also worked as a senior lecturer in English at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, served as a member of the faculty of the University of Iowa and taught at Goddard College in Vermont. She lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teached as the Rosencranz writer in residence at Yale University and in the creative writing program of Boston University.
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June 1, 2024
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
Birth, death, war, grief, abortion, trauma, abuse, bottled-up violence, domestic claustrophobia. The emotional landscapes Louise Glück explores in in her 1968 debut collection are grim and desolate. Her poems evoke a dark and inhospitable world in which tension, friction, absence, loss, hopelessness define life and relationships . Raw, stern, often angry and unheimlich, Firstborn is a collection on which she herself tried to look back “with embarrassed tenderness”. Nonetheless, thinking of what I remember from reading some of her later collections (Meadowlands, Averno, Winter Recipes from the Collective), I have the impression some of those later themes, motifs (flowers, stars, mythology, the natural world) and moods are incipient in these early poems, which lean more on the use of rhyme than the later poems. Many lines of the poems didn’t disclose themselves yet when reading them for a first time. Hopefully, when continuing to read my way chronologically through her oeuvre this year, more light will shine through their opacity and further insights will grow.
Some of the poems that spoke to me most: .
Late snow
Seven years I watched the next-door
Lady stroll her empty mate. One May he turned his head to see
A chrysalis give forth its kleenex creature:
He’d forgotten what they were. But pleasant days she
Walked him up and down. And crooned to him.
He gurgled from his wheelchair, finally
Dying last Fall. I think the birds came
Back too soon this year. The slugs
Have been extinguished by a snow. Still, all the same,
She wasn’t young herself. It must have hurt her legs
To push his weight that way. A late snow hugs
The robins’ tree. I saw it come. The mama withers on her eggs.
Cottonmouth Country
Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other signs
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
Firstborn
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watch the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving...
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
I know. I also left a skin there.
Birth, death, war, grief, abortion, trauma, abuse, bottled-up violence, domestic claustrophobia. The emotional landscapes Louise Glück explores in in her 1968 debut collection are grim and desolate. Her poems evoke a dark and inhospitable world in which tension, friction, absence, loss, hopelessness define life and relationships . Raw, stern, often angry and unheimlich, Firstborn is a collection on which she herself tried to look back “with embarrassed tenderness”. Nonetheless, thinking of what I remember from reading some of her later collections (Meadowlands, Averno, Winter Recipes from the Collective), I have the impression some of those later themes, motifs (flowers, stars, mythology, the natural world) and moods are incipient in these early poems, which lean more on the use of rhyme than the later poems. Many lines of the poems didn’t disclose themselves yet when reading them for a first time. Hopefully, when continuing to read my way chronologically through her oeuvre this year, more light will shine through their opacity and further insights will grow.
Some of the poems that spoke to me most: .
Late snow
Seven years I watched the next-door
Lady stroll her empty mate. One May he turned his head to see
A chrysalis give forth its kleenex creature:
He’d forgotten what they were. But pleasant days she
Walked him up and down. And crooned to him.
He gurgled from his wheelchair, finally
Dying last Fall. I think the birds came
Back too soon this year. The slugs
Have been extinguished by a snow. Still, all the same,
She wasn’t young herself. It must have hurt her legs
To push his weight that way. A late snow hugs
The robins’ tree. I saw it come. The mama withers on her eggs.
Cottonmouth Country
Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other signs
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
Reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
Firstborn
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watch the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving...
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
November 22, 2022
Lacked an emotional connection and clarity in (intended) meaning of most poems, even though they are subdivided in three parts.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
- Cottonmouth country
This is the aptly called first bundle, from 1968, of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature winner.
In terms of feeling Firstborn: Poems conjures a feeling of a cold winter day, walking on a beach alone and slightly lonely. Louise Glück was in her early twenties when this bundle was published, and it shows in a certain sense.
The poems in the bundle often have a kind of stilted rhythm of very short sentences, that sometimes don’t feel right in terms of grammar even on close reading.
The images conjured are mostly of everyday life, involving Thanksgiving, a train ride in Chicago, celebrating Labourday or December car rides with family. Pregnancy also comes back, as does the Atlantic ocean near Edgartown.
Firstborn
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watched the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving…
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
- Cottonmouth country
This is the aptly called first bundle, from 1968, of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature winner.
In terms of feeling Firstborn: Poems conjures a feeling of a cold winter day, walking on a beach alone and slightly lonely. Louise Glück was in her early twenties when this bundle was published, and it shows in a certain sense.
The poems in the bundle often have a kind of stilted rhythm of very short sentences, that sometimes don’t feel right in terms of grammar even on close reading.
The images conjured are mostly of everyday life, involving Thanksgiving, a train ride in Chicago, celebrating Labourday or December car rides with family. Pregnancy also comes back, as does the Atlantic ocean near Edgartown.
Firstborn
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watched the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving…
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
May 19, 2022
IT DID NOT CONVEY TOO MUCH
This debut collection of poems by Louise Glück (1968) is a dense in form, very patiently written kind of poetry.
It focuses on the deep disgust for the world around the speaker, in particular on the disappointing and bitter relationships with (former) lovers, doctors or relatives.
But almost nothing in its density, both in vocabulary and style (built around internal rhyme, puns, frequent alliterations and repetitions) anticipates the distinctive poetic voice of the later author. It was okay, but did not convey much. Rational, a bit boring.
Not the best collection of poems I've read. And surely not one of Glück's bests.
This debut collection of poems by Louise Glück (1968) is a dense in form, very patiently written kind of poetry.
It focuses on the deep disgust for the world around the speaker, in particular on the disappointing and bitter relationships with (former) lovers, doctors or relatives.
But almost nothing in its density, both in vocabulary and style (built around internal rhyme, puns, frequent alliterations and repetitions) anticipates the distinctive poetic voice of the later author. It was okay, but did not convey much. Rational, a bit boring.
Not the best collection of poems I've read. And surely not one of Glück's bests.
May 10, 2025
Firstborn is Louise Glück’s first book
Published in nineteen-sixty-eight
Though you may want to have a look
I can’t promise you’ll find it great
It is indeed hard to imagine
How twenty-four-year-old Louise
Would one day be the latest fashion
And inspire lines like these
It only goes to show that one
Can conquer mediocrity
So long as there's another sun
Somewhere beyond the newborn sea
Read
November 18, 2022A tame, almost insipid beginning to the works of Glück. I look for the line that grabs at my tear ducts, and that’s usually always the case when I read poetry. I’m also on the lookout for goosebumps, my hair standing on end, or suddenly feeling a breeze in a completely insulated room. That happened a few times in this collection, with the following poems:
-The Chicago Train
-My Cousin in April
-Grandmother in the Garden
-Firstborn
-Late Snow
And here is Late Snow in its entirety, because I found it superb:
-The Chicago Train
-My Cousin in April
-Grandmother in the Garden
-Firstborn
-Late Snow
And here is Late Snow in its entirety, because I found it superb:
Seven years I watched the next-door
Lady stroll her empty mate. One May he turned his head to see
A chrysalis give forth its kleenex creature:
He’d forgotten what they were. But pleasant days she
Walked him up and down. And crooned to him.
He gurgled from his wheelchair, finally
Dying last Fall. I think the birds came
Back too soon this year. The slugs
Have been extinguished by a snow. Still, all the same,
She wasn’t young herself. It must have hurt her legs
To push his weight that way. A late snow hugs
The robins’ tree. I saw it come. The mama withers on her eggs.
Read
October 10, 2020[αδιάφορο μέχρι χασμουρίσματος. λογικό θα μου πεις, η πρώτη της συλλογή στα 24 ήταν]
December 4, 2009
Wow, this was published when the author was only 24. It was weird for me to see Gluck writing in form (rhyming!). In terms of subject matter, there seems to be a greater variety here than in her later books. She attempts "portraits" of what I think are real people--a grandmother, war veterans, an old neighbor, a nurse, slaves--which was jarring because I'm used to her subjects being herself, her family, her lovers, or mythical figures. I think she does the imaginary and the internal better than the external--her "portraits" felt pretty forced to me. Hmm, glimmers of her later voice--and I thought "Thanksgiving," "Hesitate to Call," and "The Wound" (was that about abortion?) were knockouts--but in general, I'm glad she dropped the traditional rhyming and the external subjects stuff in her later books.
October 8, 2020
Firstborn
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watched the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving…
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
The weeks go by. I shelve them,
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans…
Beans sour in their pot. I watched the lone onion
Floating like Ophelia, caked with grease:
You listless, fidget with the spoon.
What now? You miss my care? Your yard ripens
To a ward of roses, like a year ago when staff nuns
Wheeled me down the aisle…
You couldn’t look. I saw
Converted love, your son,
Drooling under glass, starving…
We are eating well.
Today my meatman turns his trained knife
On veal, your favorite. I pay with my life.
January 16, 2026
“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬𝘴 𝘨𝘰 𝘣𝘺. 𝘐 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴…
𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘵. 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯
𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘖𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘢, 𝘤𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦:
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘯.
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸? 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦? 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴
𝘛𝘰 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 𝘯𝘶𝘯𝘴
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘦…
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬. 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘸
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘯,
𝘋𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨…
𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭.
𝘛𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦
𝘖𝘯 𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦. 𝘐 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.”
Passive action. Direct application.
What is one to do with time that simply slips away? And then the mind wanders. The details come, all to pinpoint a memory that has been itching to come up for air.
How much grace do we give memory for coming all the way up to the surface for a little breath work? For how many seconds a lifetime does it need to stay afloat, just to come back down to a lower place, to hide, to smother itself in the life that we’ve built for ourselves?
Here in the title poem that speaks so well to the other poems collected here, feel like pinpricks, enough to jolt you and situate yourself in the comfortability of Gluck’s prose. Interesting images waft in and out, subtly, like a brunt breeze in summer that catches you off guard. Words hit you when you least expect it. And that, in the heart of poetry, is the gift of it all.
𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘴…
𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘵. 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘯
𝘍𝘭𝘰𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘖𝘱𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘢, 𝘤𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘦:
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘰𝘯.
𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸? 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘮𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦? 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘺𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘴
𝘛𝘰 𝘢 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘴, 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘧𝘧 𝘯𝘶𝘯𝘴
𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘭𝘦…
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬. 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘸
𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘯,
𝘋𝘳𝘰𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨…
𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭.
𝘛𝘰𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘮𝘺 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘬𝘯𝘪𝘧𝘦
𝘖𝘯 𝘷𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘷𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘦. 𝘐 𝘱𝘢𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘺 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦.”
Passive action. Direct application.
What is one to do with time that simply slips away? And then the mind wanders. The details come, all to pinpoint a memory that has been itching to come up for air.
How much grace do we give memory for coming all the way up to the surface for a little breath work? For how many seconds a lifetime does it need to stay afloat, just to come back down to a lower place, to hide, to smother itself in the life that we’ve built for ourselves?
Here in the title poem that speaks so well to the other poems collected here, feel like pinpricks, enough to jolt you and situate yourself in the comfortability of Gluck’s prose. Interesting images waft in and out, subtly, like a brunt breeze in summer that catches you off guard. Words hit you when you least expect it. And that, in the heart of poetry, is the gift of it all.
January 5, 2021
The Guardian in an excellent article on the 2020 Noble Prize for literature winner Louise Glück (https://www.theguardian.com/books/202...) simply says of this – her first published collection “Do not begin at the beginning; Firstborn (1969) was apprentice work”.
The author herself in the introduction to The First Five Books of Poems comments that “Towards the poems of Firstborn, some written more than 35 [now 40] years ago, I try to cultivate an attitude of embarassed tenderness”.
She also talks of how in each of her collections tries to respond to the limitations she perceived her previous works – “after Firstborn, I set myself the task of making poems as single sentences, having found myself trapped in fragments”
For me, not only were the individual poems too fragmentary – but so was the overall collection.
I missed the sense of a unified theme of idea that seems so strong in all her subsequent collections and as a result both my reading experience of the individual poems suffered (with little for me to anchor them on) as well as the overall collection. In contrast I found some of her subsequent collections – for example Averno – had strongly recurring themes which both reinforced and enhanced my appreciation of the individual poems.
I also found the occasional use of rhyme clunky – for example in “Labor Day” (https://engpoetry.com/louise-gluck/la...).
Requiring something lovely on his arm
Took me to Stamford, Connecticut, a quasi-farm,
His family’s; later picking up the mammoth
Girlfriend of Charlie, meanwhile trying to pawn me off
My favourite line was from the titular poem – perhaps an apt albeit inadvertent description also of the experiences of 2020 (with grocery hoarding followed by the sameness of lockdown)
The weeks go by, I shelve them
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans
But overall I would strongly suggest – that, unlike me, you take the Guardian’s advice.
The author herself in the introduction to The First Five Books of Poems comments that “Towards the poems of Firstborn, some written more than 35 [now 40] years ago, I try to cultivate an attitude of embarassed tenderness”.
She also talks of how in each of her collections tries to respond to the limitations she perceived her previous works – “after Firstborn, I set myself the task of making poems as single sentences, having found myself trapped in fragments”
For me, not only were the individual poems too fragmentary – but so was the overall collection.
I missed the sense of a unified theme of idea that seems so strong in all her subsequent collections and as a result both my reading experience of the individual poems suffered (with little for me to anchor them on) as well as the overall collection. In contrast I found some of her subsequent collections – for example Averno – had strongly recurring themes which both reinforced and enhanced my appreciation of the individual poems.
I also found the occasional use of rhyme clunky – for example in “Labor Day” (https://engpoetry.com/louise-gluck/la...).
Requiring something lovely on his arm
Took me to Stamford, Connecticut, a quasi-farm,
His family’s; later picking up the mammoth
Girlfriend of Charlie, meanwhile trying to pawn me off
My favourite line was from the titular poem – perhaps an apt albeit inadvertent description also of the experiences of 2020 (with grocery hoarding followed by the sameness of lockdown)
The weeks go by, I shelve them
They are all the same, like peeled soup cans
But overall I would strongly suggest – that, unlike me, you take the Guardian’s advice.
October 18, 2020
After Gluck was awarded the Nobel for literature, I decided to read her first book, which was published 52 years ago. The poet was a 20 something at the time.
These poems are quite good. Some aspects are a bit too personal for a reader to determine exactly what Gluck’s intentions are, or what or to whom she is addressing. But there are many enjoyable aspects to her poetry: deft use of words, clear imagery, skillfully controlled pace and tempo. You have the immediate sense that you are conversing with a highly intelligent and astute person. So you’re drawn to that; the poems crackle with electricity and verve.
These poems are quite good. Some aspects are a bit too personal for a reader to determine exactly what Gluck’s intentions are, or what or to whom she is addressing. But there are many enjoyable aspects to her poetry: deft use of words, clear imagery, skillfully controlled pace and tempo. You have the immediate sense that you are conversing with a highly intelligent and astute person. So you’re drawn to that; the poems crackle with electricity and verve.
Read
August 16, 2022a thumbs up from me 👍
Read
September 30, 2014Louise before Louise. This is her first collection, so it's obviously not her best, but it's interesting to see the seeds of her known style at work here. The first section is best, but the whole thing seems a little bogged down as Glück tries to realize her own style here. I think Leanna's review explains it best by saying that the poems are too externally focused, which is not Glück's strong suit.
December 9, 2024
Louise Glück's inaugural anthology, unveiled in 1968, heralds the emergence of a poet whose oeuvre would eventually garner the Nobel Prize in Literature. Partitioned into three segments: "The Egg," "The Edge," and "Cottonmouth Country," each exploring motifs of estrangement, familial discord, and the unvarnished truths of existence.
Glück's diction is both austere and evocative, encapsulating the rawness of life with an exactitude that is simultaneously disquieting and compelling. For instance, in "The Chicago Train," Glück delineates an experience on a commuter train with visceral imagery: "just Mister with his barren / Skull across the arm-rest while the kid / Got his head between his mama’s legs and slept." This poem, akin to many in the collection, employs stark, almost brutal imagery to convey a sense of desolation and disconnection.
The controlled, spare language that typifies Glück's early work would evolve yet remain a signature of her poetry. Firstborn is distinguished by an unyielding vision and a refusal to romanticize existence. This is manifest in poems like "Thanksgiving," where the holiday is portrayed not as a festive gathering but as a tableau of underlying tension and decay. In "Cottonmouth Country," Glück writes, "I have a friend who still believes in heaven. / Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God." Such imagery underscores the poet's prowess in transmuting mundane events into profound meditations on frailty and the inexorable passage of time.
Despite the often grim subject matter, Glück's work in Firstborn is not devoid of moments of tenderness and insight. The collection's concluding section, "Cottonmouth Country," shifts focus to place and memory, capturing the ephemeral beauty of landscapes and the fleeting nature of experience. Her ability to mix the personal with the universal ("I have survived my life"), to discern beauty amidst desolation, is what renders Firstborn a potent and enduring work, establishing her as a formidable voice in American poetry.
"The Racer’s Widow
The elements have merged into solicitude.
Spasms of violets rise above the mud
And weed and soon the birds and ancients
Will be starting to arrive, bereaving points
South. But never mind. It is not painful to discuss
His death. I have been primed for this,
For separation, for so long. But still his face assaults
Me, I can hear that car careen again, the crowd coagulate on asphalt In my sleep.
And watching him, I feel my legs like snow That let him finally let him go
As he lies draining there. And see
How even he did not get to keep that lovely body."
Glück's diction is both austere and evocative, encapsulating the rawness of life with an exactitude that is simultaneously disquieting and compelling. For instance, in "The Chicago Train," Glück delineates an experience on a commuter train with visceral imagery: "just Mister with his barren / Skull across the arm-rest while the kid / Got his head between his mama’s legs and slept." This poem, akin to many in the collection, employs stark, almost brutal imagery to convey a sense of desolation and disconnection.
The controlled, spare language that typifies Glück's early work would evolve yet remain a signature of her poetry. Firstborn is distinguished by an unyielding vision and a refusal to romanticize existence. This is manifest in poems like "Thanksgiving," where the holiday is portrayed not as a festive gathering but as a tableau of underlying tension and decay. In "Cottonmouth Country," Glück writes, "I have a friend who still believes in heaven. / Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to God." Such imagery underscores the poet's prowess in transmuting mundane events into profound meditations on frailty and the inexorable passage of time.
Despite the often grim subject matter, Glück's work in Firstborn is not devoid of moments of tenderness and insight. The collection's concluding section, "Cottonmouth Country," shifts focus to place and memory, capturing the ephemeral beauty of landscapes and the fleeting nature of experience. Her ability to mix the personal with the universal ("I have survived my life"), to discern beauty amidst desolation, is what renders Firstborn a potent and enduring work, establishing her as a formidable voice in American poetry.
"The Racer’s Widow
The elements have merged into solicitude.
Spasms of violets rise above the mud
And weed and soon the birds and ancients
Will be starting to arrive, bereaving points
South. But never mind. It is not painful to discuss
His death. I have been primed for this,
For separation, for so long. But still his face assaults
Me, I can hear that car careen again, the crowd coagulate on asphalt In my sleep.
And watching him, I feel my legs like snow That let him finally let him go
As he lies draining there. And see
How even he did not get to keep that lovely body."
October 18, 2020
I happened to buy a collection of Glück's poems some years ago after a poetry event in London - on the basis that I liked the bits I heard there - and here's the Nobel Prize to make me actually pick it up.
Glad I did; still like these. Oceanic details, moods, portraits. Looks like both the author and her readers consider this first one a weakling: I think I will gladly see how she grows.
My favourites here were 'The Egg', 'Meridian', and, of course, 'Silverpoint', which is about a sister.
Glad I did; still like these. Oceanic details, moods, portraits. Looks like both the author and her readers consider this first one a weakling: I think I will gladly see how she grows.
My favourites here were 'The Egg', 'Meridian', and, of course, 'Silverpoint', which is about a sister.
January 2, 2025
“I have survived my life.”
August 13, 2024
2/5
I’ve wanted to read a Louise glück poetry collection forever and decided to read her works in mostly chronological order. Her debut poem collection, Firstborn was unfortunately not for me. I had a hard time connecting to most of the poems because she frequently writes in perspectives that I had no way of connecting to - a grandmother looking at her life, a mom looking at her daughter, people who’ve had awful ex lovers - and I found the writing itself a bit dull. Her voice wasn’t clear as I wished it could be to me, but I’m eager to continue with some of her later works and hope that I enjoy them more!
I’ve wanted to read a Louise glück poetry collection forever and decided to read her works in mostly chronological order. Her debut poem collection, Firstborn was unfortunately not for me. I had a hard time connecting to most of the poems because she frequently writes in perspectives that I had no way of connecting to - a grandmother looking at her life, a mom looking at her daughter, people who’ve had awful ex lovers - and I found the writing itself a bit dull. Her voice wasn’t clear as I wished it could be to me, but I’m eager to continue with some of her later works and hope that I enjoy them more!
June 29, 2024
Loathe entirely.
Except for a handful of half-lines where the Louise I love peers through the overwritten bowers, eyes barely seen amid the dense foliage, and speaks herself into phantasmic presence.
Like a specter, she simply ebbs into nonexistence.
And I return to my loathing.
Except for a handful of half-lines where the Louise I love peers through the overwritten bowers, eyes barely seen amid the dense foliage, and speaks herself into phantasmic presence.
Like a specter, she simply ebbs into nonexistence.
And I return to my loathing.
November 29, 2024
experimental, lyrical, and cohesive but it was often hard to parse meaning so lacked an emotional draw.
stand-out poems: “Hesitate to Call”, “Phenomenal Survivals of Death in Nantucket”, “Solstice”, and “Inlet”.
stand-out poems: “Hesitate to Call”, “Phenomenal Survivals of Death in Nantucket”, “Solstice”, and “Inlet”.
July 4, 2025
the reviews are quite harsh on this one. i liked it a lot! after finding it difficult all year, this collection has made me excited about reading again. i love her images of land/water/air and the intermixing and muddling of the three. her preoccupation with time and its movement, engorgement, fragmentation… there’s something there i can’t quite parse on a first read. i will revisit! 3.5 stars
June 5, 2023
Across from me the whole ride
Hardly stirred: just Mister with his barren
Skull across the arm-rest while the kid
Got his head between his mama's leg and slept. The poison
That replaces air took over
And they sat - as though paralysis preceding death
Had nailed them there. The track bent south.
I saw her pulsing crotch ... the lice rooted in that baby's hair
Så dunkelt så lurende ubehageligt åbner nobelvinderen Louise Glücks 1968 debutdigtsamling Firstborn. Med et pulserende skridt og lus rodfæstet i drengens hår. Og ubehaget er bestemt ikke en ukendt gæst i den tredelte poesisamling, hvor selv noget så smukt og forårsrent som krokus "spreads like cancer". Sådan kredser teksten om naturens og menneskelivets mørke ofte gennem en prisme af skæve ulykkelige skæbner som den demente litteraturprofessor der spejler sig tragikomisk i semiprofil i Universitets store indgangsspejl.
Louise Glück er linjeskiftets dronning. Ingen formår som hende at vende læserens nethinde på hovedet. Glück bruger konsekvent det lille brudte rum mellem linjerne til med simple virkemidler at vende op og ned sætningens narrativ - bruden der lyster, mens efter sin uskyld:
Snored ... I want
My innocence. I see
Gud, men nej gud der har skadet nonnen i sin celle:
Bulging through linen: God
Damaged me - made.
Eller min personlige favorit. Basilikummen der nok er druknet, men i SALATEN!!!!:
My mother's basil drowned
In salad.
Det er også på lydsiden smuk poesi, der ved højtlæsning viser mange overraskende rytmiske overgange, der dog nogen gange bliver lige studentikose nok til mig, når digtene viser en nærmest barnlig fascination af rim og lydlig lighed mellem ord - se fx sætningen "And walk like a bride, and wear him inside."
De store mytiske temaer og det konceptuelle, der fylder så meget i senere værker (A village life, Averno etc) er ikke vågnet helt op i denne spæde begyndelse af Glücks poesi, men måske det afsluttende digt Saturnalia åbner den dør, til fødslen af de næste mange samlingers behandlinger af græsk-romersk mytologiske rum: "the myth contracts" (som en ve?) skriver Glück i hvert fald selv på samlingens sidste side.
Hardly stirred: just Mister with his barren
Skull across the arm-rest while the kid
Got his head between his mama's leg and slept. The poison
That replaces air took over
And they sat - as though paralysis preceding death
Had nailed them there. The track bent south.
I saw her pulsing crotch ... the lice rooted in that baby's hair
Så dunkelt så lurende ubehageligt åbner nobelvinderen Louise Glücks 1968 debutdigtsamling Firstborn. Med et pulserende skridt og lus rodfæstet i drengens hår. Og ubehaget er bestemt ikke en ukendt gæst i den tredelte poesisamling, hvor selv noget så smukt og forårsrent som krokus "spreads like cancer". Sådan kredser teksten om naturens og menneskelivets mørke ofte gennem en prisme af skæve ulykkelige skæbner som den demente litteraturprofessor der spejler sig tragikomisk i semiprofil i Universitets store indgangsspejl.
Louise Glück er linjeskiftets dronning. Ingen formår som hende at vende læserens nethinde på hovedet. Glück bruger konsekvent det lille brudte rum mellem linjerne til med simple virkemidler at vende op og ned sætningens narrativ - bruden der lyster, mens efter sin uskyld:
Snored ... I want
My innocence. I see
Gud, men nej gud der har skadet nonnen i sin celle:
Bulging through linen: God
Damaged me - made.
Eller min personlige favorit. Basilikummen der nok er druknet, men i SALATEN!!!!:
My mother's basil drowned
In salad.
Det er også på lydsiden smuk poesi, der ved højtlæsning viser mange overraskende rytmiske overgange, der dog nogen gange bliver lige studentikose nok til mig, når digtene viser en nærmest barnlig fascination af rim og lydlig lighed mellem ord - se fx sætningen "And walk like a bride, and wear him inside."
De store mytiske temaer og det konceptuelle, der fylder så meget i senere værker (A village life, Averno etc) er ikke vågnet helt op i denne spæde begyndelse af Glücks poesi, men måske det afsluttende digt Saturnalia åbner den dør, til fødslen af de næste mange samlingers behandlinger af græsk-romersk mytologiske rum: "the myth contracts" (som en ve?) skriver Glück i hvert fald selv på samlingens sidste side.
January 20, 2017
"My first house shall be built on these sands,
My second in the sea."
There are some really lovely poems here, although overall as a collection it doesn't have the power that I know she carries later in her career.
My second in the sea."
There are some really lovely poems here, although overall as a collection it doesn't have the power that I know she carries later in her career.
May 20, 2023
Took me forever to get back into reading this because I wasn’t hooked. But stayed for the vibe. I can sense that her second book’s much better cause I already read the first poem hehe.
Here are some pieces I love:
The Racer’s Widow
Bridal Piece
My Life Before Dawn
Seconds
Here are some pieces I love:
The Racer’s Widow
Bridal Piece
My Life Before Dawn
Seconds
October 17, 2020
<< In tenebris the catapulted heart drones
Like Andromeda. No one telephones. >>
Like Andromeda. No one telephones. >>
May 11, 2024
Mă bucur că nu am început să citesc cu cartea asta.
Și-i sfătuiesc și pe alții care vor vrea să citească Louise Gluck să nu o facă.
Am experiența unei singure alte cărți, dar diferența e semnificativă.
Acolo poemele aveau o coerență internă pe care am simțit-o circulând de-a lungul cărții, dându-mi impresia că formează cu adevărat un întreg. Un lucru care adesea-mi lipsește în cărțile de poezie pe care se întâmplă să le citesc. De multe ori mi se pare că întâlnesc volume de poeme adunate la un loc fără o temă centrală a volumului. La fel s-a întâmplat și cu Firstborn. În prima jumătate n-am prea înțeles să fie vorba despre ceva. Poemele sunt fragmentare nu doar de la o pagină la alta, ci și de la un vers la altul. În mijlocul poemului simțeam că parcă dintr-o dată citesc altceva. Spre finalul volumului mi se pare că lucrurile se mai simplifică și lasă loc de niște jocuri de cuvinte chiar frumoase. Am și râs de câteva ori. Cred că i-aș fi dat două steluțe dacă nu erau jocurile astea de cuvinte.
E și cartea de debut a autoarei din ce am descoperit într-o scurtă căutare printre celelalte recenzii de pe goodreads.
Sunt curios cum va arăta asta în comparație cu următoarele cărți.
Și-i sfătuiesc și pe alții care vor vrea să citească Louise Gluck să nu o facă.
Am experiența unei singure alte cărți, dar diferența e semnificativă.
Acolo poemele aveau o coerență internă pe care am simțit-o circulând de-a lungul cărții, dându-mi impresia că formează cu adevărat un întreg. Un lucru care adesea-mi lipsește în cărțile de poezie pe care se întâmplă să le citesc. De multe ori mi se pare că întâlnesc volume de poeme adunate la un loc fără o temă centrală a volumului. La fel s-a întâmplat și cu Firstborn. În prima jumătate n-am prea înțeles să fie vorba despre ceva. Poemele sunt fragmentare nu doar de la o pagină la alta, ci și de la un vers la altul. În mijlocul poemului simțeam că parcă dintr-o dată citesc altceva. Spre finalul volumului mi se pare că lucrurile se mai simplifică și lasă loc de niște jocuri de cuvinte chiar frumoase. Am și râs de câteva ori. Cred că i-aș fi dat două steluțe dacă nu erau jocurile astea de cuvinte.
E și cartea de debut a autoarei din ce am descoperit într-o scurtă căutare printre celelalte recenzii de pe goodreads.
Sunt curios cum va arăta asta în comparație cu următoarele cărți.
August 22, 2021
This was the first collection Louise Glück published back when she was 24/25. You can see how she developed a very unique style from the beginning of her career. I must say that I - personally - couldn’t really click with the poems and that’s why I gave it 1 ⭐️. Maybe it is because I got into her writing with her newer poetry collections and that’s why her older writing don’t flow with me. But that’s only my personal opinion about this book. If you’re a fan of Louise Glück and want to read all of her poetry that she has published, then this shouldn’t be missing from you.
June 30, 2024
I read a book
by a writer who probably exists,
filled with words that have been here for a while
rather than spontaneously appearing as I turn the pages.
I review it on Goodreads
and people who probably aren't bots click Like.
I smoke some weed
and the smoke merges with the fog outside my window.
In a Louise Glück poem,
these events would be posed as an epic undertaking.
Not sure why, but
that's the vibe I got.
by a writer who probably exists,
filled with words that have been here for a while
rather than spontaneously appearing as I turn the pages.
I review it on Goodreads
and people who probably aren't bots click Like.
I smoke some weed
and the smoke merges with the fog outside my window.
In a Louise Glück poem,
these events would be posed as an epic undertaking.
Not sure why, but
that's the vibe I got.
December 21, 2023
mehh not her best work imo
Read
August 8, 2024“Birth, not death, is the great loss”
Read
February 5, 2025You can really hear the voice of her later work, but it’s just in a very unfocused, overexcited, adolescent form. Didn’t love it but cool to see
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