Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i>
This essay argues for the importance of the overlooked theme of natality in the poetry of Louise Glück. In its guise as mortality, human finitude causes pain through the permanence of death; in its guise as natality, finitude can also be an occasion for wonder at the unlikely chance of having been b...
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2025-06-01
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| author | Reena Sastri |
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| description | This essay argues for the importance of the overlooked theme of natality in the poetry of Louise Glück. In its guise as mortality, human finitude causes pain through the permanence of death; in its guise as natality, finitude can also be an occasion for wonder at the unlikely chance of having been born, and the contingency and possibility for beginning something new associated with natality by Hannah Arendt and others. In Glück’s work, the theme of natality comes across in poems concerning pregnancy, birth, infants, children, and mothers. Several of her poems feature a hybrid identification as child and as mother, a hybridity that enables the apprehension of natality and that leads to a mode of poetic speech that originates in, and is imbricated with, listening as an alternative to knowing. This essay examines some of Glück’s earlier poetry in these terms before turning to her 2006 volume <i>Averno</i>, which retells the myth of Persephone. Undeniably preoccupied with death, <i>Averno</i> is, I argue, equally concerned with birth, mindful that human finitude itself is double or hybrid. Although many poems cast Demeter as a smothering, possessive mother, <i>Averno</i>, at key moments, takes into account a mother’s perspective as well as a child’s. This hybrid identification gives rise to the emergence of an unexpected lyric voice that both listens and sings. |
| format | Article |
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| spelling | doaj-art-91c041d987a741dfa2bae2cf985278f82025-08-20T02:21:12ZengMDPI AGHumanities2076-07872025-06-0114612210.3390/h14060122Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i>Reena Sastri0Centre for Open Learning, University of Edinburgh, Paterson’s Land, Holyrood Rd, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ, UKThis essay argues for the importance of the overlooked theme of natality in the poetry of Louise Glück. In its guise as mortality, human finitude causes pain through the permanence of death; in its guise as natality, finitude can also be an occasion for wonder at the unlikely chance of having been born, and the contingency and possibility for beginning something new associated with natality by Hannah Arendt and others. In Glück’s work, the theme of natality comes across in poems concerning pregnancy, birth, infants, children, and mothers. Several of her poems feature a hybrid identification as child and as mother, a hybridity that enables the apprehension of natality and that leads to a mode of poetic speech that originates in, and is imbricated with, listening as an alternative to knowing. This essay examines some of Glück’s earlier poetry in these terms before turning to her 2006 volume <i>Averno</i>, which retells the myth of Persephone. Undeniably preoccupied with death, <i>Averno</i> is, I argue, equally concerned with birth, mindful that human finitude itself is double or hybrid. Although many poems cast Demeter as a smothering, possessive mother, <i>Averno</i>, at key moments, takes into account a mother’s perspective as well as a child’s. This hybrid identification gives rise to the emergence of an unexpected lyric voice that both listens and sings.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/14/6/122poetryAmerican literaturebirthfinitudenatalitymyth |
| spellingShingle | Reena Sastri Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> Humanities poetry American literature birth finitude natality myth |
| title | Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> |
| title_full | Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> |
| title_fullStr | Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> |
| title_full_unstemmed | Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> |
| title_short | Unbearable Birth: Natality in Louise Glück’s <i>Averno</i> |
| title_sort | unbearable birth natality in louise gluck s i averno i |
| topic | poetry American literature birth finitude natality myth |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/14/6/122 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT reenasastri unbearablebirthnatalityinlouiseglucksiavernoi |