The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
"The Wild Iris" by Louise Glück is a poetic exploration of the themes of suffering, rebirth, and the quest for voice through the metaphor of a wild iris flower. The poem illustrates the transformative journey of growth as the wild iris breaks through the earth, symbolizing new life emerging from the depths of despair. The speaker reflects on their experiences with death and rebirth, urging the audience to listen and understand the nuances of their struggle. Through vivid imagery, such as the interplay of light and earth, and the movement of birds, Glück captures the essence of transitioning from darkness to light. The emergence from the soil represents not only physical resurrection but also the reclaiming of one's voice and identity. This struggle for expression resonates deeply with Glück's personal writing journey, characterized by periods of silence followed by bursts of creativity. Ultimately, the poem serves as a poignant reminder of resilience and the enduring power of self-discovery amidst challenges.
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Subject Terms
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1992 (collected in The Wild Iris, 1992)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“The Wild Iris” compares human suffering and finding a voice to the growth of the wild iris or any plant or flower that makes a “passage from the other world” underground despite the difficulty of breaking through. In the image of the wild iris, the explosion of color symbolizes new life.
The speaker describes a door which she sees “at the end of [her] suffering” and implores the reader/listener, “Hear me out: that which you call death I remember.” Hearing the “branches of the pine shifting” as “the weak sun flickered over the dry surface” of the earth, this soul is only conscious of being “buried in the dark earth” alive, then feeling “the stiff earth bending a little.” The image of“birds darting in low shrubs” underscores the movement from underground to aboveground and the vantage point of the speaker as she emerges from the earth. As she “returns from oblivion . . . to find a voice,” she sees a “great fountain” with “deep blue shadows on azure seawater” gushing forth, not only as a wild iris appears but also as the voice does when it bursts into song or eloquent speech.
This theme of struggling to find a voice is a consistent one for Glück, who has gone through periods of more than a year without writing but then experienced periods of great productivity. She has described the liberation she felt after realizing that she could not write according to a schedule and would have to wait until the time felt right to her.
Bibliography
Diehl, Joanne Feit, ed. On Louise Glück: Change What You See. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005.
Dodd, Elizabeth. “Louise Glück: The Ardent Understatement of Postconfessional Classicism.” In The Veiled Mirror and the Woman Poet: H. D., Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, and Louise Glück. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992.
Harrison, DeSales. The End of the Mind: The Edge of the Intelligible in Hardy, Stevens, Larkin, Plath, and Glück. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Upton, Lee. Defensive Measures: The Poetry of Niedecker, Bishop, Glück, and Carson. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 2005.
Upton, Lee. “Fleshless Voices: Louise Glück’s Rituals of Abjection and Oblivion.” In The Muse of Abandonment: Origin, Identity, Mastery in Five American Poets. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1998.