Friday, August 5, 2022

Louise Glück's 'Parable of the Swans'

 Yesterday’s note on Louise Glück made me do some searching.

Her Nobel Lecture mentions a contest, conducted when she was 5 or 6, to declare the greatest poem in the world. It made me think — against her warnings — about which poem of hers I’d claim to like best.

I think it’s “Parable of the Swans.”

The male believes love is a feeling in the heart. The female believes love is what you do. After 10 years, they hit a patch of slimy water.

                        Sooner or later in a long

            life together, every couple encounters

            some emergency like this, some

            drama which results

            in harm. This

            occurs for a reason: to test

            love and to demand

            fresh articulation of its complex terms.

If you are lucky enough to have had a long life together with someone, I’d guess you’d like this poem.

• Source: The poem is here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49615/parable-of-the-swans


 

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