Proofs and Theories
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Proofs and Theories, winner of the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Non-Fiction, is an illuminating collection of essays by Louise Glück, one of this country's most brilliant poets.
Like her poems, the prose of Glück, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1993 for The Wild Iris, is compressed, fastidious, fierce, alert, and absolutely unconsoled. The force of her thought is evident everywhere in these essays, from her explorations of other poets' work to her skeptical contemplation of current literary critical notions such as "sincerity" and "courage." Here also are Glück's revealing reflections on her own education and life as a poet, and a tribute to her teacher and mentor, Stanley Kunitz. Proofs and Theories is not a casual collection. It is the testament of a major poet.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
Louise Glück (1943-2023) was the author of two collections of essays and thirteen books of poems. Her many awards included the Nobel Prize in Literature, the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize for The Wild Iris, the National Book Award for Faithful and Virtuous Night, the National Book Critics Circle Award for The Triumph of Achilles, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poems 1962-2012, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets. She taught at Yale University and Stanford University and lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"As with her poetry, Glück's prose is fine and pared but visionary; her intelligence is precise and earnest. . . . Here and elsewhere Glück's brevity, clarity, and resolute independence are impressive." -- Publishers Weekly
"With this book, [Glück] becomes the patron saint of poets and writers, having fallen and crawled and scared herself to a position from which she reticently gives advice." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"This first collection of [Glück's] essays is written in a different medium [than her poetry], but it contains the same dark precision, the same spare fates and paradoxes. . . Proofs and Theories. . . is certainly a provocative book. . . it is the prickly poetic testament and memoir of one of America's finest poets." -- Poetry Flash
