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Gluck, Louise : The Seven Ages

The Ecco Press, Hopewell, NJ, 2001

ISBN 0880016345

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 68 pages. The author's ninth collection of poems. One of Louise Gluck's finest achievements. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Louise Gluck's "The Seven Ages". According to admirers and critics, her boldest poetic statement yet. "Investigates the disappointments, unfinished quests, and unanswered questions that compose, arrange, and ruin a life. Gluck dares her readers to ask, as they might have in childhood, harrowing questions. Scenes, queries, and moments of self-analysis throughout the volume investigate the ways in which we change in the course of a lifetime, the ways our minds change from moment to moment; and the ways in which time changes everything. Wise, densely crafted meditations" (Publishers Weekly). "In it she stares down her own death, and, in so doing, forces endless superimpositions of the possible on the impossible" (Publisher's blurb). Gluck has found a way out of the "confessional" mode of American poetry without renouncing what is valuable and true about it. Just as C. P. Cavafy found a way to unite the mythical and the personal, all of Gluck's work is autobiography melded to an acute knowledge of and passion for the great myths. "Why do I suffer? / Why am I ignorant? / I'm awake; I am in the world / I expect / no further assurance" (Louise Gluck). An absolute "must-have" title for Louise Gluck collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen on the title page by Louise Gluck. It is signed directly on the page, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary classic. This is one of few such signed copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A scarce signed copy thus. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1985 for "The Triumph of Achilles". Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for "The Wild Iris". America's Poet Laureate in 2003 and 2004. One of the greatest poets of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER LOUISE GLUCK TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0880016345.

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