A Terrible Beauty is Born
In Vita Nova, Louise Gliick s latest and ninth book of poems, the poet resolutely examines and sheds the past. She considers various deaths which take place in a life: end of love, loss of safety, end of childhood, loss of a parent each death, while terrifying, involves transformation. That death approaches, both literally and figuratively, as prerequisite to change, is not a new concept. In the Bible, the verse reads: "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." An old life is cast off so that a fresh, though unfamiliar, life may blossom. Metamorphosis is not a new theme for Gliick. In her Pulitzer Prize winning Wild Iris, the dormant snowdrops open: "I didn't expect to waken again, to feel. afraid, yes, but among you again crying yes risk joy in the raw wind of the new world." Vita Nova confronts the reader with the terror of transmutation, and then propels her through. A living captive in one poem states: "Everyone afraid of love is afraid of death." The poems of Vita Nova delve deeply into both subjects, never skirting the fears they provoke. Adept at assuming personae, Gliick conjures Dante's La Vita Nuova, Virgil's Aeneid, and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the enthralled lover, thwarted lover, and beloved, all take shape in these pages. The poems reflect immortal loves, earthly loves, descents into hell, and earthly terrors. While reconstructing her past, Gliick poses the central question: "Does it have to happen in the world to be real?" The book's epigraph, "The master said You must write what you see. But what I see does not