American poet Louise Glück has won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. Also a Pulitzer Prize winner, she becomes the 16th woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, joining such previous Pulitzer winners as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan. Learn more about Louise Glück’s lifetime achievements which include a Guggenheim Award, and a National Book Award. The Pulitzer Prizes
Louise Glück Awarded 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature – The Pulitzer Prizes
1993 Poetry winner Louise Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature this morning, joining such previous Pulitzer winners as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison and Bob Dylan in receiving the prestigious prize.. The Nobel committee recognized Glück for “her unmistakable poetic voice, that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”
While the Nobel Prize recognizes a body of work, the selection below, “The Red Poppy,” was included in Glück’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Wild Iris, published by The Eco Press, 1992.
The Red Poppy
Louise Glück
The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.
From The Wild Iris, published by The Ecco Press, 1992.
