Meadowlands

Rating:
Summary: Following Homer a tough task
Review: 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

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Interpretation of "The Odyssey"
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Interpretation of "The Odyssey"
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Myth and Modern Day
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Myth and Modern Day
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Major Drama Peacefully Rendered
Review: Major drama peacefully rendered in a slim volume of elegant poetic output