<b>Snowdrops</b> Do you know what I was, how I lived? You … - Louise Glück

" "
Snowdrops

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn’t expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring — afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

Louise Glück

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despair poetry rebirth suffering

English

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About Louise Glück

Louise Elisabeth Glück (April 22, 1943 – October 13, 2023) was an American poet and essayist. From 2003 to 2004, she was Poet Laureate of the United States. She had won many major literary awards in the United States, including the National Humanities Medal, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and Bollingen Prize, among others. In 2020, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal."

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Also Known As

Native Name: Louise Elisabeth Glück

Alternative Names: Louise Gluck

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Shorter versions of this quote

crying yes risk joy

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring— afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy in the raw wind of the new world.

Originators like Louise Glück:

Anne Sexton Denise Levertov Mary Oliver Anne Carson Anna Akhmatova

Additional quotes by Louise Glück

Even before you touched me, I belonged to you; all you had to do was look at me.

Some of us make our own light: a silver leaf like a path no one can use.

I could live almost completely in imagination.

<b>Snowdrops</b> Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to surviv… - Louise Glück

About Louise Glück

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