The probing essays collected in American Originality scrutinise the terms we use to think about recent American poetry, its antecedents (not just Whitman and Dickinson but Ovid, Rilke, Thomas Mann, Keats) and its future, questioning how we distinguish between work that is unique and work that is original, carefully delineating the allure of both 'shared traditions' and 'the cult of illogic'. Attentive always to risk and danger, Louise Gluck illuminates how the poet at work moves between panic and gratitude, agony and resolution. Essays on specific writers and on the larger themes of American literature introduce the terms by which she reads and celebrates ten younger poets whose work she has advocated. Studded with brilliant insights into her own practice and the work of her contemporaries, this is an essential book for any interested reader of new poetry.

About the Author
Louise Gluck is the author of twelve books of poems and two collections of essays. In 2020 she received the Nobel Prize for Literature 'for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal'.

Reviews
'Gluck speaks to our time in a voice that is onstage, but heard from the wings' - Publishers Weekly



Book Information
ISBN 9781800171558
Author Louise Gluck
Format Paperback
Page Count 208
Imprint Lives and Letters
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 135mm * 16mm