SOURCE: "Flower Power," in The New Republic, Vol. 208, No. 21, May 24, 1993, pp. 35-8.

In this review of The Wild Iris, Vendler explains the poet's use of the metaphors of gardening and flowers to address issues of god, love, and ageing. The critic finds this approach to be reminiscent of previous poets and an interesting development for Glück. Vendler also insists that what has been viewed as the poet's mannered style is an essential poetic gesture.

Louise Glück is a poet of strong and haunting presence. Her poems, published in a series of memorable books over the last twenty years, have achieved the unusual distinction of being neither "confessional" nor "intellectual" in the usual senses of those words, which are often thought to represent two camps in the life of poetry. For a long time, Glück refused both the autobiographical and the discursive, in favor of a...