Louise Glück received the Nobel Prize for Literature for her entire poetic work in 2020. Gallimard publishes averno, in a bilingual edition. This particular poetry does not fit into a conventional system. Let’s read: “Disappointment. Lies. Embellishments called hypotheses – / There were too many roads, too many versions. There were too many roads, no single path – / And at the end? This dryness is not the only voice of this poetry. Its title refers to a volcanic lake, near Naples, seen as an entrance to the Underworld. Persephone and her mother insert their myth there. The collection is sometimes more intimate: “I was young here. To take / the metro with my little book / as if to defend myself against // this same world: // you are not alone, says the poem / in the dark tunnel. Philosophical, sociological, feminist, this work is never constrained. averno emerges from this atypical way of conceiving the poetic.
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