Louise Glück: Revenge Against Circumstance

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Academy of Achievement

Film, Politics, Arts, Self-help, Sports, Society & Culture, Success, Literature, Humanitarian, Military, Social Justice, Technology, Podcast, Achievement, Music, Science

4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2017

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Louise Glück uses simple, unsentimental language in her poems to evoke overwhelming emotions. That rare combination is what has distinguished her as one of America's greatest living poets, for over half a century. In this episode, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, former Poet Laureate of the United States digs into the torment and uncertainty that has hounded her throughout her writing life. She talks about how teaching poetry, which she feared would diminish her art, instead allowed it to flourish. And she describes her obsessive desire to hear music in her ears, and language in her head. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2017

Transcript

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0:00.0	I write to discover meaning. I want experience to mean something. It's less a matter of who I am than that idea that nothing should be wasted.
0:16.0	The something must come of it.
0:19.0	And writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too.
0:24.0	Bad luck, loss, pain.
0:28.0	If you make something out of it,
0:31.0	then you've no longer been bested by these events.
0:37.0	That is Louise Glick, one of America's preeminent poets.
0:45.0	And just to clear this up before I go any further,
0:47.6	you might think of her as Louise Glock.
0:50.6	I know I did, because her name is spelled GLU, C, but it's a Hungarian name and it's actually pronounced
0:57.3	Glick. So picking back up here, Louise Glick has been writing and publishing poetry for well over 50 years.
1:06.0	In 2003 and 2004, she was the Poet Laureate of the United States.
1:12.0	As a professor, she's unleashed generations of poets
1:15.5	into the world, and she's exceptionally honest.
1:19.0	Some would say, ruthlessly so,
1:21.6	both in her poems and in talking about her embattled life as a writer.
1:26.4	So on this episode, The Truth According to Louise Glick, this is what it takes, a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement.
1:37.0	I'm Alice Winkler.
1:41.0	Adam Aye, this child is gifted and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
1:46.7	If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity and you don't take it, you may never have
1:52.2	another job.
1:53.0	It all was so clear.
	...

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