[.ca] Meadowlands (ISBN 0880015063)

From Amazon.com:
Louise Gluck sows the fertile subject ground of marital discord in harvesting this crop of gems. The poems zing back and forth as the verses alternate between man and woman. "Flaubert had more friends and Flaubert was a recluse" says he, followed by her response, "Flaubert was crazy; he lived with his mother," In one scene they argue over dead French writers; later they discuss football. Yet Gluck's work is more than a series of barbs. She writes in the nuances and language of a marriage, laid out against the voices of Odysseus and Penelope.

Myth and Modern Day:
Louise Gluck's collection, "Meadowlands," appears as a sequential testimony of a woman battling with the conflicting emotions that result from the abandonment by her mate. Gluck successfully portrays these conflicting emotions by juxtaposing the speaker's sense of abandonment and divorce with the physical separation that Penelope experiences in the classic literary epic, "The Odyssey." What I find to be the most interesting approach in many of Gluck's poems is the fact that she parrallels contemporary values with mythological references. In doing so, the poet not only mythologizes reality but also questions the modern-day foundations of marriage. Gluck's tone throughout the poems simultaneously appears to be both confessional and universal. Anyone who has ever experienced separation from a loved one will easily relate to the feelings of the speaker in each poem. Though novel-like in construction, Gluck's poems function as glimpses into the mindsets of realistic and mythological personas. Not all of her poems fit succinctly or chronologically together throughout the collection. However, the poems in which she examines the personas of Penelope, Odysseus, Circe, and Telemachus are vivid, emotional, and inspiring. By describing mythological figures in contemporary and colloquial language, Gluck divulges into the emotional and psychological aspects of a family suffering from the abandonment of the male figure. Any fan of "The Odyssey" will appreciate Gluck's creativity and exploration of the human psyche in myth and modern day.

Meadowlands: playful, uneven, but striking:
At first glance a departure from her previoius books. Certainly not as good, as a whole, as The Wild Iris, or Ararat. Thematically tight, circling around the journey of Odysseus and the homelife of those he left behind, this volume displays a new playfulness, a looseness. The dominant voice of the book is spite, told and retold in the eponymous series of poems, but not so simply: this is the voice of tedium, of love having struck daily life, tolerance instead of passion, annoyance instead of love, of two people who circle each other endlessly, never in the same emotional space at the same time. The product of love is loss, and hurt. But also hope. And tenderness. Magnificent monologues abound in this book. The worst that can be said is that the volume is tonally uneven, taking jarring leaps in time and vernacular. Also a few poems might seemed to me weak, to be neither thematically or narratively significant, nor were they solid poems alone. But the lasting image of the book is one of wistfulness, a defiant memory of the possibilities to come. A nice progression for those who have followed th arc of Gluck's writing.

Interesting Interpretation of "The Odyssey":
I read "Meadowlands" for my Comparative Literature class dealing with women writers and classical myth. I loved the way that Louise Gluck gave women such as Circe and Penelope more of a voice than Homer did in "The Odyssey." Women such as Circe and Penelope played crutial roles in the adventures of Odysseus and writings such as these are evidence of that. Some of the poems keep with the time period of "The Odyssey" while others are modern day and still based upon the legendary figures of Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus and Circe. It was a very interesting read that I would recommend to anyone who has read "The Odyssey" or is familiar with the story.

Following Homer a tough task:
Anyone who tries to walk in Homer's shoes has got to be a very good poet. Failure would bring certain ridicule from Pulitzer peers. Louise Gluck lives up to her reputation as a leading contemporary poet with "Meadowlands." The book is worth buying, may be enjoyed by most poetry readers, and is nearly 100 percent satisfying. Gluck has presented 46 poems in a story of three lives during a marriage that is falling apart: Odysseus, Penelope, and their son, Telemachus. Gluck presents her poems in several groupings within the book. There are nine entitled "Parables" of one sort or another that tell symbolic tales. There are a number of dialog poems between the man and the woman-he said, she said-that are free-spirited and very direct. There are sirens and a Circe, of course, who are very sexy, but tend to screw things up for the marriage. There are a series of observations by Telemachus, the unfortunate victim of this relationship. Telemachus grows into manhood during this book, though strangely disappears too soon to assess his recovery, and that's the one unsatisfying detail for me. Unlike The Odyssey, Penelope and Odysseus don't get back together again at the end. I didn't notice a Polyphemus character. I would liked to have seen his unique perspective on this unfortunate situation. Gluck writes of the usual stuff that wrecks a marriage: affairs, jealousy, decades-old gripes, the humdrum that magnifies to crime during the dissolution of a marriage. It's quite mundane stuff, but Gluck is wickedly precise in the telling. In the dialog poem "Ceremony," Odysseus says to Penelope: one thing I've always hated about you: I hate that you refuse to have people at the house. Flaubert had more friends and Flaubert was a recluse and Penelope responds: Flaubert was crazy: he lived with his mother... I have deep friendships. I have friendships with other recluses. Another example from my favorite poem in the book, "Anniversary," in which he says: I said you could snuggle. That doesn't mean your cold feet all over my (...) . Someone should teach you how to act in bed. What I think is you should keep your extremities to yourself. Look what you did- you made the cat move. and she replies: You should pay attention to my feet. You should picture them the next time you see a hot fifteen year old. Because there's a lot more where those feet come from. Gluck revels in the personalities of her protagonists. The dialog poems were my favorites in the book. They do not invoke the Homeric tale. They were fresh and startling, even more so because of the Odyssey surrounding them. If you buy this book, please read them as a group (as you could do with the other groupings, too). I think you'll agree with me that the dialog poems are very special. Tom Lombardo Atlanta, GA