SOURCE: "Above an Abyss," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 262, No. 17, April 29, 1996, pp. 28-30.

In this excerpt, Gordon views Glück's Meadowlands as a subverted Odyssey, telling the story of a voyage away from the ultimate union between Ulysses and Penelope, with the wife in Meadowlands being depicted as Penelope unweaving the fabric of the marriage.

For Louise Glück in her newest book, divorce is the start awake after the sleep-walking of a bad relationship. As in some of her previous collections, she draws from a mythic source in Meadowlands, using central figures and themes from The Odyssey to illustrate the dissolution of her marriage. There is abundant proof in Meadowlands that Glück has resources to equal those of Odysseus, who says (in Homer's words) "I have a heart that is inured to suffering. … So let this new disaster come. It only makes one more."

There...