The Red Poppy (a Poem)

NOBEL LAUREATES, POETRY FORMAT, 12 Oct 2020

Louise Glück, Nobel Literature 2020 laureate | Academy of American Poets – TRANSCEND Media Service

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

___________________________________________________

From The Wild Iris, published by Ecco Press, 1992. Copyright © 1992 by Louise Glück. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Louise Glück (1943 – ) is the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature. The author of several collections of poetry, she served as a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and was the Library of Congress’s twelfth poet laureate consultant in poetry. 

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