Averno
By: Louise Glück
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: March 7, 2006
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 79
ISBN-13: 9780374107420
Subjects: Persephone (Greek deity); Poetry
Description: Averno is a small crater lake in southern Italy, regarded by the ancient Romans as the entrance to the underworld. That place gives its name to Louise Glück's eleventh collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter, it is the only source of heat and light, a gate or passageway that invites traffic between worlds while at the same time opposing their reconciliation. Averno is an extended lamentation, its long, restless poems no less spellbinding for being without plot or hope, no less ravishing for being savage, grief-stricken. What Averno provides is not a map to a point of arrival or departure, but a diagram of where we are, the harrowing, enduring presence. --Publisher.