From the Archive: Louise Glück

This April marks the 50th anniversary of Louise Glück’s first publication in Poetry, at the age of 22.  Her poetry had previously only appeared in one other publication, Mademoiselle. In the April 1966 issue of Poetry, Glück’s three rhyming poems—which mingle alongside poems by Robert Duncan and Larry Eigner—signal the arrival of Glück’s spare, inward style and her interest in persona and form. They also introduce the artistic concerns that Glück would explore for decades to come: the pang of failed love, the intersection of the domestic and natural worlds, the agony of the self. Her first book, Firstborn, was published two years later, in 1968.

To mark this anniversary, we have collected 21 of Glück’s poems that have appeared in Poetry over the past 50 years, along with some items from the magazine’s archives.