A Tonuge Unimpeded in Louise Glück's House on Marshland

Glück's House on Marshland is an exhibition of language that somehow, very carefully, goes out on a limb to make the most uncanny of metaphor and simile. Her language is like a strange bird making its way across the rarest of fresh ponds. Glück's mastery of the delicate nature of language is evident even in the first couple poems of this book. "Even now this landscape is assembling." is how she begins the work. It is fitting that a landscape assembles in the very first lines of Marshland because the book is primarily a patchwork of the precious, the serene and the unusual, all of this presented in such a casual way, such a lack of need to charm the reader, a lack of tinsel. I am repeatedly astounded by the magnificence of her simple observation. A line I find myself continuously marveling over comes in the observation of "The Messengers", "And the deer--/how beautiful they are,/as though their bodies did not impede them.", as though the awkward curtain of a language does not impede Glück's merciless humanity; her desire to connect plain speech with an almost omniscient observation.

I am compelled to revisit "Archipelago" continuously. I know this ship, captain and crew. This may be the conceit I was looking for, executed masterfully. But something about the landscape cups it. This could be a cover for a failed marriage or some other intimate relationship, just as it could be a metaphor for a poorly managed family life. Regardless, at the end of the poem, the same effect is achieved. What is left is a design of years and months confused by the uncertain captain, water sneering against a ship, a shrieking crew. I cannot answer the questions this poem asks, which perhaps is the point.

In "Nativity Poem" Glück paints the scene while seeming to simultaneously question the truth and reality of the story. In the first lines, "It is the evening/of the birth of god." she says something flawless yet flawed, Christ not being God in the eyes of Christians, yet the savior. This attitude seems to call God and Jesus into question, mingling them, diminishing their distinction, yet having some truth to it. Later in the poem, she points to Joseph who "has touched/his cheek, meaning/he is weeping-" This also creates a sense of triviality, as if the scene is not obvious, or that each action is not purposeful and meaningful, as the Nativity is so often portrayed. There is a sense of something being called into question. Glück ends the poem with the lyrically and contextually startling stanza,

But how small he is, withdrawn

from the hollow of his mother's life,

the raw flesh bound

in linen as the stars yield

light to delight his sense

for whom there is no ornament.

It seems to me as though the author is relinquished to the final image of the child; that no matter what conjecture there is, placed upon the scene, it remains whole and complete within itself, and no poem or thought which is less than humble can come close to detailing it. Glück has a way of paying homage to something and also calling it into question. The reader is left dumbfounded yet dazzled by the language: "light to delight his sense"

Stanley Kunitz describes Glück's verse by saying, "Everything she touches turns to music and legend." I would go further and say that the poems in this collection have the sense of already being legend, already being music, and somehow fallen in the lap of the poet. It is remarkably unforced, easy yet legendary. The poems of House on Marshland feel as if they were written hundreds of years ago or as though they came out of the woods, or fell from the sky.