Winter Recipes from the Collective: Poems

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE A haunting book by a poet whose voice speaks of all our lifetimes Louise Glück’s thirteenth book is among her most haunting Here as in the Wild Iris there is a chorus but the speakers are entirely human simultaneously spectral and ancient Winter Recipes from the Collective is chamber music an invitation into that privileged realm small enough for the individual instrument to make itself heard dolente its line sustained carried and then taken up by the next instrument spirited animoso while at the same time being large enough to contain a whole lifetime the inconceivable gifts and losses of old age the little princesses rattling in the back of a car an abandoned passport the ingredients of an invigorating winter sandwich a sister’s death the joyful presence of the sun its brightness measured by the darkness it casts Some of you will know what I mean the poet says by which she means some of you will follow me Hers is the sustaining presence the voice containing all our lifetimes all the worlds each more beautiful than the last This magnificent book couldn’t have been written by anyone else nor could it have been written by the poet at any other time in her life