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Louise Glück (1943–2023), Nobel- and Pulitzer-winning poet 

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Louise Glück was a poet and essayist whose exploration of trauma, death, loss, and struggle earned her the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and many others.

Louise Glücke28099s legacy

Glück first began exploring her literary muse as a teenager suffering from anorexia nervosa. The struggle ravaged her health throughout her young adulthood. Poetry workshops at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University's School of General Studies focused her attention on expressing her trauma through writing, and soon she began to publish her work. Her poems landed in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and others. Glücke28099s first collection, e2809cFirstborn,e2809d was published in 1968 and received critical praise.

Further collections followed, including 1985e28099s e2809cThe Triumph of Achilles,e2809d which earned her widespread acclaim. Glück would continue to earn accolades, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for e2809cThe Wild Iris.e2809d Exploring loss, trauma, pain, and sorrow, she released other notable collections, including 2004e28099s e2809cOctobere2809d which was inspired by the attacks of 9/11.

Glück was among the most decorated poets of her time, winning almost every major literary accolade. In 2003 and 2004, she was named Poet Laureate of the United States. She won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020, only the 16th woman to do so since the awarde28099s creation in 1901. She won such honors as the Bollingen Prize, National Humanities Medal, National Book Award, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Glück earned fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and more. She was also an educator, teaching at such institutions as Stanford University, Boston University, and Yale.

Notable quote

e2809cIte28099s so obviously the most miraculous thing to do. I have to remind myself that not everyone in the world actually wants to be a poet.e2809de28094 from a 2014 interview on The Poet's Viewc2

Tributes to Louise Glück

Full obituary: The New York Timesc2

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