Averno

Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2020 Averno is a small crater lake in southern Italy, regarded by the Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its name to Louise Gluck’s new collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter it is both passageway between worlds and an impassable barrier. The book proceeds as a sequence, an extended lamentation, its long restless poems no less spellbinding for being without conventional resolution or consolation, no less ravishing for being savage and grief-stricken.

'Brilliant poems of complex, haunting power... Averno may be Glück's masterpiece' The New York Times Book Review An acclaimed collection from the Nobel prize-winning poet This startlingly original reworking of the Persephone myth takes us to the icy shores of Averno, the crater lake regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. Here, the consolations of rebirth and renewal are eclipsed by the immediacy of loss - by a mother's possessive grief, an abducted girl's equivocal memories, a farmer's lament for a lost harvest. This chorus offers neither comfort nor solace but deepened understanding, its sorrow textured by the poet's luminous wit. Together, the poems of Averno swell to a staggeringly powerful lamentation, through which the reader glimpses the ecstasy of the inevitable, only to find it resisted by the insistent, impersonal presence of the Earth.

Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2020 Averno is a small crater lake in southern Italy, regarded by the Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its name to Louise Gluck’s new collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter it is both passageway between worlds and an impassable barrier. The book proceeds as a sequence, an extended lamentation, its long restless poems no less spellbinding for being without conventional resolution or consolation, no less ravishing for being savage and grief-stricken.

'Brilliant poems of complex, haunting power... Averno may be Glück's masterpiece' The New York Times Book Review An acclaimed collection from the Nobel prize-winning poet This startlingly original reworking of the Persephone myth takes us to the icy shores of Averno, the crater lake regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. Here, the consolations of rebirth and renewal are eclipsed by the immediacy of loss - by a mother's possessive grief, an abducted girl's equivocal memories, a farmer's lament for a lost harvest. This chorus offers neither comfort nor solace but deepened understanding, its sorrow textured by the poet's luminous wit. Together, the poems of Averno swell to a staggeringly powerful lamentation, through which the reader glimpses the ecstasy of the inevitable, only to find it resisted by the insistent, impersonal presence of the Earth.

"Spejlingen mellem menneskeliv, kvindeliv og mytologi er virtuost vibrerende" ❤️️❤️️❤️️❤️️❤️️❤️️ – Politiken "yderst stærkt, helstøbt og uroligt klogt" ★★★★★ – Jyllands-Posten I Averno gennemskrives et livsforløb fra besværet barn- og ungdom til alderdommens indsigt og resignation, med stor lyrisk erindringskraft og stedvis satirisk brod. De mørke digte rækker fra menneskelivets forgængelighed til universets endeløshed, og med et genbesøg hos den græske mytologis guddomme Persefone, Demeter og dødsrigets Hades undersøges mor-datter-relationens almene, men intrikate natur. Louise Glück er en af Amerikas største nulevende digtere. Hun har udgivet tolv digtsamlinger, hvoraf Averno fra 2006 er den tiende. I 2020 tildeltes hun nobelprisen i litteratur. Med denne udgivelse præsenteres hun på dansk.