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outoftheofficeagain's review against another edition
5.0
To say “if you’re a sad girl, pick this up” seems terribly dismissive to just how good this poetry collection is, but nonetheless, ‘Winter Recipes from the Collective’ by Louise Glück is a perfect collection for you or the sad girl in your life. I cannot thank FSG enough for sending me a copy, it’s become an all time favorite poetry collection.
It is a beautifully and expertly written meditation on grief, love, loss, hardship, creativity, passion, and even the passage of time. Some of these lines absolutely gutted me, but when I tell you the lump in my throat was a boulder by the time I put it down. The themes of sisterhood hit in a way I wasn’t anticipating as with creative pursuit. But the most impactful was the sense of grief of the individual in so many universal pathways of life. It felt like a collection so many, anyone even, could connect to but also a sense of specificity they made it feel intimate and close.
I love this with my whole heart!
It is a beautifully and expertly written meditation on grief, love, loss, hardship, creativity, passion, and even the passage of time. Some of these lines absolutely gutted me, but when I tell you the lump in my throat was a boulder by the time I put it down. The themes of sisterhood hit in a way I wasn’t anticipating as with creative pursuit. But the most impactful was the sense of grief of the individual in so many universal pathways of life. It felt like a collection so many, anyone even, could connect to but also a sense of specificity they made it feel intimate and close.
I love this with my whole heart!
notesfromliterature's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.25
klavier's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
4.75
I read this in one sitting at the university library and had to put my head down to cry into the desk. Louise Glück, thank you.
theeuphoriczat's review against another edition
4.0
This was TOOO SHORT.
The poems are narrative and conversational. The authorial voice is that of a person with experience of loss or nearing death. You could replace 'winter' for 'death', as it is a season we spend months (our lives), toiling, gathering and preparing for.
There is no doubt that each poem began to prepare me for life's winter. It is a meditation and reflection on birth, comradery, ageing, the passage of time, loss, death, love, existence, the search for fulfilment, devotion, and stillness (either calmness or companionship).
Life, my sister said,
is like a torch passed now
from the body to the mind.
Sadly, she went one, the mind is not
there to receive it."
From the poem 'Autumn'
"Everything has ended, I said.
What makes you say so, my sister asked.
Because, I said, if it has not ended,
it will end soon which comes to the same thing.
And if that is the case,
there is no point in begining
so much as a sentence."
From the poem 'A Sentence'
"What a shame I became
verbal, with no connection
to that memory. My mother's love!
All to soon I emerged
my true self,
robust but sour,
like an alarm clock."
From the poem 'Night Thoughts'
The poems are narrative and conversational. The authorial voice is that of a person with experience of loss or nearing death. You could replace 'winter' for 'death', as it is a season we spend months (our lives), toiling, gathering and preparing for.
There is no doubt that each poem began to prepare me for life's winter. It is a meditation and reflection on birth, comradery, ageing, the passage of time, loss, death, love, existence, the search for fulfilment, devotion, and stillness (either calmness or companionship).
Life, my sister said,
is like a torch passed now
from the body to the mind.
Sadly, she went one, the mind is not
there to receive it."
From the poem 'Autumn'
"Everything has ended, I said.
What makes you say so, my sister asked.
Because, I said, if it has not ended,
it will end soon which comes to the same thing.
And if that is the case,
there is no point in begining
so much as a sentence."
From the poem 'A Sentence'
"What a shame I became
verbal, with no connection
to that memory. My mother's love!
All to soon I emerged
my true self,
robust but sour,
like an alarm clock."
From the poem 'Night Thoughts'
sriq's review against another edition
"I felt/
something true had been spoken/
and though I would have preferred to have spoken it myself/
I was glad at least to have heard it."
"You must ask yourself, he said, if you deceive yourself./
By which I mean looking at the watch and not/
the hand holding it."
"How hard it was/
to be alive, no wonder/
they all died."
"We are all of us in this room/
still waiting to be transformed. This is why we search for love./
We search for it all our lives,/
even after we find it."
something true had been spoken/
and though I would have preferred to have spoken it myself/
I was glad at least to have heard it."
"You must ask yourself, he said, if you deceive yourself./
By which I mean looking at the watch and not/
the hand holding it."
"How hard it was/
to be alive, no wonder/
they all died."
"We are all of us in this room/
still waiting to be transformed. This is why we search for love./
We search for it all our lives,/
even after we find it."
laraamaee's review against another edition
4.5
So very tender and beautiful. Thank you Bianca for the gift of this book—I want to write a lot of poems now. Need to read more of Glück’s work.