Averno: Poems

Averno: Poems

<p>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 tenth collection: in a landscape turned irretrievably to winter, it is a gate or passageway that invites traffic between worlds while at the same time resisting their reconciliation. <i>Averno</i> is an extended lamentation, its long, restless poems no less spellbinding for being without conventional resoltution or consolation, no less ravishing for being savage, grief-stricken. What <i>Averno</i> provides is not a map to a point of arrival or departure, but a diagram of where we are, the harrowing, enduring present.</p><p><i>Averno</i> is a 2006 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry.</p>