Glück, Louise (Elisabeth) 1943-

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GLÜCK, Louise (Elisabeth) 1943-

PERSONAL: Surname is pronounced "Glick"; born April 22, 1943, in New York, NY; daughter of Daniel (an executive) and Beatrice (Grosby) Glück; married Charles Hertz, Jr., 1967 (divorced); married John Dranow (a writer and vice president of the New England Culinary Institute), 1977 (divorced); children: Noah Benjamin. Education: Attended Sarah Lawrence College, 1962, and Columbia University, 1963-66, 1967-68.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cambridge, MA. Office—Williams College, English Department, Williamstown, MA 01267. E-mail—Louise.E.Gluck@williams.edu.

CAREER: Poet. Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA, visiting teacher, 1970; Goddard College, Plainfield, VT, artist-in-residence, 1971-72, member of faculty, 1973-74; poet-in-residence, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, NC, spring, 1973, and Writer's Community, 1979; visiting professor, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 1976-77, Columbia University, New York, NY, 1979, and University of California—Davis, Davis, CA, 1983; Goddard College, member of faculty and member of board of M.F.A. Writing Program, 1976-80; University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, Ellison Professor of Poetry, spring, 1978; Warren Wilson College, Swannanoa, NC, member of faculty and member of board of M.F.A. Program for Writers, 1980-84; University of California—Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, Holloway Lecturer, 1982; Williams College, Williamstown, MA, Scott Professor of Poetry, 1983, senior lecturer in English, 1984-2004; Yale University, New Haven, CT, Rosenkranz Writer-in-Residence, 2004—. Regents Professor, University of California—Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 1985-87; Phi Beta Kappa Poet, Harvard University, 1990; Fanny Hurst Professor, Brandeis University, 1996. Special consultant, Library of Congress, Washington, DC, 1999. Poetry panelist or poetry reader at conferences and foundations, including Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and PEN Southwest Conference; judge of numerous poetry contests, including Yale Series of Younger Poets, 2003-07.

MEMBER: American Academy of Arts and Letters, Academy of American Poets (chancellor, 1999), PEN (member of board, 1988—).

AWARDS, HONORS: Academy of American Poets Prize, Columbia University, 1966; Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, 1967; National Endowment for the Arts grants, 1969, 1979, fellowship 1988-89; Eunice Tietjens Memorial Prize, Poetry magazine, 1971; Guggenheim fellowship, 1975, 1987-88; Vermont Council for the Arts individual artist grant, 1978-79; Award in Literature, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1981; National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry, Boston Globe Literary Press Award, and Melville Cane Award, Poetry Society of America, 1985, all for The Triumph of Achilles; Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize, Wellesley College, 1986; Bobbitt National Prize (with Mark Strand), 1990, for Ararat; Pulitzer Prize, and William Carlos Williams Award, Poetry Society of America, 1993, both for The Wild Iris; Martha Albrand Award for nonfiction, PEN, 1994, for Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry; Special Consultant in Poetry, Library of Congress, 1999-2000; M.I.T. Anniversary Medal, 2000; Bingham Poetry Prize, Boston Book Review, and best poetry book, New Yorker Awards, both 2000, both for Vita Nova; Böllingen Prize, Yale University, 2001; National Book Critics Circle Award nomination, 2002, for The Seven Ages; U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, Library of Congress, 2003-04; D.Litt. from Williams College, Skidmore College, and Middlebury College.

WRITINGS:

Firstborn, New American Library (New York, NY), 1968.

The House on Marshland, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1975.

The Garden, Antaeus (New York, NY), 1976.

Descending Figure, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1980.

The Triumph of Achilles, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1985.

Ararat, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1990.

The Wild Iris, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1992.

(Editor, with David Lehman) The Best American Poetry 1993, Collier (New York, NY), 1993.

Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1994.

The First Four Books of Poems, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Meadowlands, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Vita Nova, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1999.

The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress—Favorite Poets. Louise Glück (sound recording), includes interview by Grace Cabalieri, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1999.

The Seven Ages, Ecco Press (New York, NY), 2001.

October (chapbook), Sarabande Books (Louisville, KY), 2004.

Author of introduction to The Clerk's Tale by Spencer Reece, Mariner Books (Boston, MA), 2004. Work represented in numerous anthologies, including The New Yorker Book of Poems, Viking (New York, NY), 1970; New Voices in American Poetry, Winthrop Publishing (Cambridge, MA), 1973; and The American Poetry Anthology, Avon (New York, NY), 1975. Contributor to sound recordings from the Library of Congress (Washington, DC), including Poetry and the American Eagle, 2000, and Poetry in America, 2000. Contributor to various periodicals, including Antaeus, New Yorker, New Republic, Poetry, Salmagundi, and American Poetry Review.

SIDELIGHTS: Considered by many critics to be one of America's most talented contemporary poets, Louise Glück creates verse that has been described as technically precise, sensitive, insightful, and gripping. In her work, Glück freely shares her most intimate thoughts on such commonly shared human experiences as love, family, relationships, and death. "Glück demands a reader's attention and commands his respect," stated R. D. Spector in the Saturday Review. "Glück's poetry is intimate, familial, and what Edwin Muir has called the fable, the archetypal," added Contemporary Women Poets contributor James K. Robinson. Within her work can be discerned the influences of poets Stanley Kunitz, with whom Glück studied while attending Columbia University in the mid-1960s, and the early work of Robert Lowell; shadows cast by the confessional poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton also haunt her earliest poetry.

From her first book of poetry, Firstborn, through her more mature work, Glück has become internationally recognized as a skilled yet perceptive author who pulls the reader into her poetry and shares the poetic experience equally with her audience. Helen Hennessey Vendler commented in her New Republic review of Glück's second book, The House on Marshland, that "Glück's cryptic narratives invite our participation: we must, according to the case, fill out the story, substitute ourselves for the fictive personages, invent a scenario from which the speaker can utter her lines, decode the import, 'solve' the allegory. Or such is our first impulse. Later, I think . . . we read the poem, instead, as a truth complete within its own terms, reflecting some one of the innumerable configurations into which experience falls."

Looking over Glück's early body of work, Dave Smith appraised her ability in a review of Descending Figure in the American Poetry Review: "There are poets senior to Louise Glück who have done some better work and there are poets of her generation who have done more work. But who is writing consistently better with each book? Who is writing consistently so well at her age? Perhaps it is only my own hunger that wants her to write more, that hopes for the breakthrough poems I do not think she has yet given us. She has the chance as few ever do to become a major poet and no one can talk about contemporary American poetry without speaking of Louise Glück's accomplishment."

For admirers of Glück's work, the poetry in books such as Firstborn, The House on Marshland, The Garden, Descending Figure, The Triumph of Achilles, Ararat, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Wild Iris take readers on an inner journey by exploring their deepest, most intimate feelings. "Glück has a gift for getting the reader to imagine with her, drawing on the power of her audience to be amazed," observed Anna Wooten in the American Poetry Review, adding, "She engages a 'spectator' in a way that few other poets can do." Stephen Dobyns maintained in the New York Times Book Review that "no American poet writes better than Louise Glück, perhaps none can lead us so deeply into our own nature."

One reason reviewers cite for Glück's seemingly unfailing ability to capture her reader's attention is her expertise at creating poetry that many people can understand, relate to, and experience intensely and completely. Her poetic voice is unique and her language is deceptively straightforward. In a review of Glück's The Triumph of Achilles, Wendy Lesser noted in the Washington Post Book World: "'Direct' is the operative word here: Glück's language is staunchly straightforward, remarkably close to the diction of ordinary speech. Yet her careful selection for rhythm and repetition, and the specificity of even her idiomatically vague phrases, give her poems a weight that is far from colloquial." Lesser went on to remark that "the strength of that voice derives in large part from its self-centeredness—literally, for the words in Glück's poems seem to come directly from the center of herself."

Because Glück writes so effectively about disappointment, rejection, loss, and isolation, reviewers frequently refer to her poetry as "bleak" or "dark." For example, Deno Trakas observed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography that "Glück's poetry has few themes and few moods. Whether she is writing autobiographically or assuming a persona, at the center of every poem is an 'I' who is isolated from family, or bitter from rejected love, or disappointed with what life has to offer. Her world is bleak; however, it is depicted with a lyrical grace, and her poems are attractive if disturbing. . . . Glück's poetry, despite flaws, is remarkable for its consistently high quality." Addressing the subdued character of her verse, Nation's Don Bogen felt that Glück's "basic concerns" were "betrayal, mortality, love and the sense of loss that accompanies it . . . She is at heart the poet of a fallen world. . . . Glück's work to define that mortal part shows dignity and sober compassion." Bogen elaborated further: "Fierce yet coolly intelligent, Glück's poem disturbs not because it is idiosyncratic but because it defines something we feel yet rarely acknowledge; it strips off a veil. Glück has never been content to stop at the surfaces of things. Among the well-mannered forms, nostalgia and blurred resolutions of today's verse, the relentless clarity of her work stands out."

Readers and reviewers have also marveled at Glück's custom of creating poetry with a dreamlike quality that at the same time deals with the realities of passionate and emotional subjects. Holly Prado declared in a Los Angeles Times Book Review critique of The Triumph of Achilles that Glück's poetry works "because she has an unmistakable voice that resonates and brings into our contemporary world the old notion that poetry and the visionary are intertwined." Prado continued to reflect: "The tone of her work is eerie, philosophical, questioning. Her poems aren't simply mystical ramblings. Far from it. They're sternly well-crafted pieces. But they carry the voice of a poet who sees, within herself, beyond the ordinary and is able to offer powerful insights, insights not to be quickly interpreted."

"Glück's ear never fails her; she manages to be conversational and lyrical at the same time, a considerable achievement when so much contemporary poetry is lamentably prosaic," asserted Wooten in the American Poetry Review. "Her range is personal and mythical, and the particular genius of the volume rests in its fusion of both approaches, rescuing the poems from either narrow self-glorification or pedantic myopia." This mythical voice, echoing the emotional quandaries of the twentieth century, can be quickly identified in Meadowlands, through the voices of Odysseus and Penelope. Describing the collection as "a kind of high-low rhetorical experiment in marriage studies," New York Times Book Review critic Deborah Garrison added that, through the "suburban banter" between the ancient wanderer and his wife, Meadowlands "captures the way that a marriage itself has a tone, a set of shared vocal grooves inseparable from the particular personalities involved and the partial truces they've made along the way." Commenting on the link between Glück's work and the narrative of Homer, Leslie Ullman added in Poetry that the dynamic of Meadowlands is "played out through poems that speak through or about principle characters in The Odyssey, and it is echoed in poems that do not attempt to disguise their origins in Glück's own experience."

Vita Nova earned Glück the prestigious 50,000 dollar Böllingen Prize from Yale University. In an interview with Brian Phillips of the Harvard Advocate, Glück stated: "This book was written very, very rapidly. . . . Once it started, I thought, this is a roll, and if it means you're not going to sleep, okay, you're not going to sleep. I wrote poems in airplanes and hotel rooms and elevators, and as a houseguest in California, and it just didn't matter where I was, it didn't matter who was with me." Phillips observed: "Something . . . that struck me about Vita Nova as a title was the irony of its historical reference. Obviously, in the late middle ages in Italy the phrase 'vita nuova' was used by Dante and others to indicate a new commitment of a romantic ideal of love. But you [Glück] seem to sort of update that phrase to mean life after the disintegration of the romantic relationship."

Reviewing Vita Nova for Publishers Weekly, a critic remarked: "Glück's psychic wounds will impress new readers, but it is Glück's austere, demanding craft that makes much of this . . . collection equal the best of her previous work—bitter, stark, careful, guiltily inward. . . . It is astonishing in its self knowledge, and above all, memorable." Offering a similar interpretation from a far more critical perspective was William Logan of New Criterion who declared: "Reading Louise Glück's new poems is like eavesdropping on a psychiatrist and a particularly agony-ridden . . . shape shifting analysand. . . . The discomfort in Vita Nova is not lessened by the suspicion that the psychiatrist may also be the patient, that all roles may be one role to this quietly hand-wringing playactor. . . . It's hard to convey the oppressive weight of these doomed, sacrificial poems." Although the ostensible subject matter of the collection is the examination of the aftermath of a broken marriage, Vita Nova is a book suffused with symbols drawn from both personal dreams and classic mythological archetypes. "The poems in this . . . collection allude repeatedly to Greek and Roman myths of the underworld as well as the Inferno," observed Bill Christophersen of Poetry, while James Longenbach, writing in Southwest Review, noted: "Vita Nova is built around not one but two mythic backbones—the stories of both Dido and Aeneas and of Orpheus and Eurydice." Tom Clark of the San Francisco Chronicle observed that "Glück examines her dream material with unsparing honesty. . . . and inscribes it with a quiet, at times painful, candor, willing to suspend judgment and entertain stubborn unclarities to find the epiphanies she obsessively seeks." Clark characterized Vita Nova as "a brave and risky book, daring to explore those obscure places by the flickering light of dreams." Taking a different slant on the collection from that of some other reviewers, Longenbach found the central theme of Vita Nova to be the poet's desire for change, and Glück's ultimate resolution to involve an embracing of recurrence rather than transcendence. "Having recognized that real freedom exists within repetition rather than in the postulation of some timeless place beyond it," Longenbach concluded, "Glück now seems content to work within the terms of her art. . . . The result is a book suggesting that Glück's poetry has many more lives to live."

Echoing Longenbach's assertion in a review of Glück's next collection, The Seven Ages, for the New York Times Book Review, Melanie Rehak stated: "It's a book in which repetition functions as incantation, forming a hazy magic that's alternately frightening and beautiful." The Seven Ages contains forty-four poems whose subject matter ranges throughout the author's life, from her earliest memories to the contemplation of death. A writer for Kirkus Reviews remarked on how the author uses "common childhood images" as a way "to resurrect intense feelings that accompany awakening to the sensual promises of life, and she desperately explores these resonant images, searching for a path that might reconcile her to the inevitability of death." While Rehak acclaimed "every poem in The Seven Ages [as] a weighty, incandescent marvel," a Publishers Weekly reviewer remarked: "Considering age and aging, summer and fall, 'stasis' and constant loss, Glück's new poems often forsake the light touch of her last few books for the grim wisdom she sought in the 1980s."

According to Longenbach: "The works of poet Louise Glück focus on the changeability of self and the definition of identity. She compares the actions of her poem's characters with their feelings, giving them credibility through colloquial diction. Glück uses extreme situations to augment character complexities and heighten the emotions involved in their search."

In 2003 Glück was named the twelfth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress. On making the appointment, James H. Billington stated, "Louise Glück will bring to the Library of Congress a strong, vivid, deep poetic voice, accomplished in a series of book-length poetic cycles. Her prize-winning poetry and her great interest in young poets will enliven the Poet Laureate's office during the next year." Glück, an intensely private individual, was quoted in USA Today as saying that her first undertaking as Poet Laureate will be "to get over being surprised." Then she hopes to promote young poets and poetry contests.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

American Writers, Supplement 5, Charles Scribner's Sons (New York, NY), 2000.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 7, 1977, Volume 22, 1982, Volume 44, 1987.

Contemporary Poets, 7th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

Contemporary Women Poets, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1997.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 5: American Poets since World War II, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1980.

Dodd, Elizabeth Caroline, The Veiled Mirror and the Woman Poet: H. D., Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Bishop, and Louise Glück, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1992.

Poetry Criticism, Volume 16, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Poetry for Students, Gale (Detroit, MI), Volume 5, 1999, Volume 15, 2002.

Trawick, Leonard M., editor, World, Self, Poem: Essays on Contemporary Poetry from the "Jubilation of Poets," Kent State University Press (Kent, OH), 1990.

Upton, Lee, The Muse of Abandonment: Origin, Identity, Mastery in Five American Poets, Bucknell University Press (Lewisburg, PA), 1998.

Vendler, Helen, Part of Nature, Part of Us: Modern American Poets, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1980.

Vendler, Helen, The Music of What Happens: Poems, Poets, Critics, Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA), 1988.

PERIODICALS

America, April 25, 1998, Edward J. Ingebretsen, review of Meadowlands, pp. 27-28.

American Poetry Review, July-August, 1975, pp. 5-6; January-February, 1982, pp. 36-46; September-October, 1982, pp. 37-46; November-December, 1986, pp. 33-36; July-August, 1990, Marianne Boruch, review of Ararat, pp. 17-19; January-February, 1993, Carol Muske, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 52-54; January-February, 1997, Allen Hoey, "Between Truth and Meaning," pp. 37-46; July-August, 2003, Tony Hoagland, "Three Tenors," pp. 37-42.

Antioch Review, spring, 1993, Daniel McGuiness, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 311-312; winter, 1997, Daniel McGuiness, review of Meadowlands, pp. 118-119.

Belles Lettres, November-December, 1986, pp. 6, 14; spring, 1991, p. 38.

Booklist, February 1, 1999, Donna Seaman and Jack Helbig, review of Vita Nova, p. 959; March 15, 2001, Donna Seaman, review of The Seven Ages, p. 1346.

Chicago Review, winter, 1997, Maureen McLane, review of Meadowlands, pp. 120-122; summer-fall, 1999, Steven Monte, "Louise Gluck," p. 180.

Christianity and Literature, autumn, 2002, William V. Davis, "'Talked to by Silence,'" pp. 47-57.

Classical and Modern Literature, spring, 2002, Sheila Murnaghan and Deborah H. Roberts, "Penelope's Song," pp. 1-32.

Contemporary Literature, spring, 1990, Diane S. Bonds, "Entering Language in Louise Gluck's The House on the Marshland," pp. 58-75; summer, 2001, Ann Keniston, "'The Fluidity of Damaged Form,'" pp. 294-324.

Georgia Review, winter, 1985, pp. 849-863; spring, 1993, Judith Kitchen, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 145-159; summer, 2002, Judith Kitchen, "Thinking about Love," pp. 594-608.

Hudson Review, spring, 1993, David Mason, review of Ararat and The Wild Iris, pp. 223-231; autumn, 2001, Bruce Bawer, "Borne Ceaselessly into the Past," pp. 513-520.

Kenyon Review, winter, 1993, David Baker, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 184-192; winter, 2001, Linda Gregerson, "The Sower against Gardens," p. 115, and Brian Henry, review of Vita Nova, p. 166; spring, 2003, Willard Spiegelman, "Repetition and Singularity," pp. 149-168.

Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2001, review of The Seven Ages, p. 468.

Landfall, May, 2001, Emma Neale, "Touchpapers," pp. 143-142.

Library Journal, September 15, 1985, p. 84; April 1, 1990; July, 1990, p. 17; May 15, 1992, Fred Muratori, review of The Wild Iris, p. 96; September, 1994, Tim Gavin, review of Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry, p. 71; March 15, 1996, Frank Allen, review of Meadowlands, p. 74; March 1, 1999, Ellen Kaufman, review of Vita Nova, p. 88; April 15, 2001, Barbara Hoffert, review of The Seven Ages, p. 98.

Literary Imagination, fall, 2003, Isaac Cates, "Louise Glück: Interstices and Silences," pp. 462-77.

Literary Review, spring, 1996, Reamy Jansen, review of Proofs and Theories, pp. 441-443.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 23, 1986, p. 10.

Mid-American Review, Volume 14, number 2, 1994.

Naples Daily News (Naples, FL), October 20, 2003, Justin Pope, "Media-Shy Poet Laureate Won't Follow in Predecessors' Footsteps."

Nation, January 18, 1986, pp. 53-54; April 15, 1991, p. 490; April 29, 1996, p. 28.

New Criterion, June, 1999, William Logan, "Vanity Fair," p. 60; June, 2001, William Logan, "Folk Tales," p. 68.

New England Review, fall, 1991, Bruce Bnod, review of Ararat, pp. 216-223; fall, 1993, Henry Hart, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 192-206; fall, 2001, Ira Sadoff, "Louise Gluck and the Last Stage of Romanticism," pp. 81-92.

New Letters, spring, 1987, pp. 3-4.

New Republic, June 17, 1978, pp. 34-37; May 24, 1993, Helen Hennessey Vendler, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 35-38.

New Yorker, May 13, 1996, Vijay Seshadri, review of Meadowlands, pp. 93-94.

New York Review of Books, October 23, 1986, p. 47.

New York Times, August 29, 2003, Elizabeth Olson, "Chronicler of Private Moments Is Named Poet Laureate," p. A14; November 4, 2003, Andrew Johnston, "Poet Laureate: Louise Gluck and the Public Face of a Private Artist," p. A24.

New York Times Book Review, April 6, 1975, pp. 37-38; October 12, 1980, p. 14; December 22, 1985, pp. 22-23; September 2, 1990, p. 5; August 4, 1996; May 13, 2001, Melanie Rehak, "Her Art Imitates Her Life. You Got That?"

North American Review, July-August, 1994, Annie Finch, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 40-42.

Parnassus, spring-summer, 1981.

People Weekly, May 5, 1997, review of Meadowlands, p. 40.

PN Review, Volume 25, number 3, Steve Burt, "The Dark Garage with the Garbage," pp. 31-35.

Poetry, April, 1986, pp. 42-44; November, 1990, Steven Cramer, "Four True Voices of Feeling," pp. 96-114; May, 1993; March, 1997, p. 339; December, 2000, Bill Christophersen, review of Vita Nova, p. 217; December, 2001, David Wojahn, review of The Seven Ages, p. 165.

Prairie Schooner, summer, 2000, Richard Jackson, review of Vita Nova, p. 190.

Publishers Weekly, February 16, 1990, p. 63; May 11, 1992, p. 58; July 4, 1994, review of Proofs and Theories, p. 49; March 18, 1996, review of Meadowlands, p. 66; December 21, 1998, review of Vita Nova, p. 62; March 12, 2001, review of The Seven Ages, p. 84.

Salmagundi, winter, 1977; spring-summer, 1991, Calvin Bedient, review of Ararat, pp. 212-230; fall, 1999, Terence Diggory, "Louise Gluck's Lyric Journey," pp. 303-318.

San Francisco Chronicle, April 4, 1999, Tom Clark, "Poet Finds Dreams Leave Traces in the Waking World," p. 3.

Saturday Review, March 15, 1969, p. 33.

Sewanee Review, winter, 1976.

South Carolina Review, fall, 2000, John Perryman, "Washing Homer's Feat," pp. 176-184.

Southwest Review, spring, 1999, James Longenbach, "Nine Lives," p. 184.

Times Literary Supplement, May 16, 1997, Stephen Burt, review of The Wild Iris, p. 25; July 30, 1999, Oliver Reynolds, "You Will Suffer," p. 23; May 25, 2001, Josephine Balmer, review of Vita Nova, p. 26.

USA Today, August 29, 2003, "Pulitzer Prize-winner Glück Named Poet Laureate."

Village Voice, September 8, 2003, Joshua Clover, "Time on Her Side."

Virginia Quarterly Review, summer, 1998, Brian Henry, "The Odyssey Revisited," pp. 571-577.

Washington Post Book World, February 2, 1986, p. 11.

Women's Review of Books, May, 1993, Elisabeth Frost, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 24-25; November, 1996, Elisabeth Frost, review of Meadowlands, pp. 24-25.

Women's Studies, Volume 17, number 3, 1990.

World Literature Today, autumn, 1993, Rochelle Owens, review of The Wild Iris, p. 827; winter, 1997, Susan Smith Nash, review of Meadowlands, pp. 156-157.

Yale Review, October, 1992, Phoebe Pettingell, review of The Wild Iris, pp. 114-115; October, 1996, James Longenbach, review of Meadowlands, pp. 158-174.