Review: 'Ararat: Poems' by Louise Glück

I knew of Louise Glück as a poet, but had never read anything by her. So when I saw that Farrar, Straus & Giroux were releasing a new edition of Ararat, I decided to jump in. This is a deeply personal collection of poems and it is almost uncomfortable to gain such a deep insight into Glück's family. There is also something comforting about it, however. Thanks to Farrar, Straus & Giroux and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this collection in exchange for an honest review.

Pub. Date: 15/04/2025
Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux

A new edition of the Nobel laureate’s searing fifth collection of poetry, about “the myth of a happy family” (The New York Review of Books).

Louise Glück, the winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, was an era-defining poet: innovative, brave, and wholly individual. Her work has left an indelible mark on the literature of our nation and of the world.

Ararat, Glück’s fifth collection of poetry, centers on the death of her father. Here she creates a ruthlessly probing family portrait and confronts the difficulties and intricacies of a daughter’s relationship to her parents. The result is a subtle and determined collection in which the poet interrogates both her own life and the whole world that emanates from it. “I was born to a vocation,” she writes, “to bear witness / to the great mysteries. / Now that I’ve seen both / birth and death, I know / to the dark nature these / are proofs, not / mysteries—”

I've always found that poetry is quite personal. Not only do poets put a lot of themselves into their poetry, whether on purpose or accidentally, but it also has to resonate on a personal level with the reader. There are a lot of poets whose craft I can admire, while being left absolutely cold by their poetry itself. For me, Wordsworth is one of those poets. I can see the ideas behind "I wandered lonely as a cloud" but it doesn't connect. Coleridge, on the other hand, his once close colleague, digs into themes and ideas which I do connect with and so his poetry is the kind I enjoy going back to. I also recently discovered Mary Oliver for myself and I find her combination between a love for nature and humanity and an awareness of the darkness inherent in both stunning. Trying a new poet is always tricky, because of this need for a personal connection. With Louise Glück I initially wasn't sure it would happen, in part because so much of herself is in this collection. Ararat is something of a self-reflection exercise for her and it is then up to the reader to figure out if they find aspects of themself reflected there as well. Initially I didn't, until, about halfway through the collection, the different threads she was playing with came together into a clearer fabric for me and I began to see her family's patterns reflecting some of my own. 

In Ararat, Glück explores the dynamics of her own family, centred around the (then) recent death of her father. No one, including Glück herself, is spared by her poetry, which probes deeply into her identity as the oldest daughter, her parents' relationship with each other and their own siblings, and those of her child and their cousins. At times, this deep insight is, as I mentioned above, uncomfortable. It almost feels like peeking into their windows, except that you can also hear their conversations and see tensions between them. And yet there is also something comforting about it. As Tolstoy said, all unhappy families are different and yet, within that unhappiness there is room for connection. While each family has their own dynamics, the kind of unearthing which happens in Ararat provides a language for doing the same with one's own family. As a child of complicated parents, you will find the perfect mix between self-sacrifice, anger, and yearning here.

I give this collection...

4 Universes!

Ararat is a very personal collection of poems about family dynamics and time passing. Glück plays with the small details and the large, weaving patterns across generations, and wondering if they can ever be broken.