Louise Glück was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Today I received the latest copy of the The New York Review of Books. This poem, obviously published prior to announcement of the award, is in the current edition.
In 2020, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.”
To ad some musical accompaniment is a link to the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song 4 + 20 from their 1970 album Déjà Vu. There is definitely a symbiosis between the poetry and the song.
New York Review of Books – 10.22.2020 Issue
Tired of rural life, the king and queen
all the little princesses
rattling in the back of the car
singing the song of being:
I am, you are, he, she, it is—
But there will be
no conjugation in the car, oh no.
Who can speak of the future? Nobody knows anything about the future,
even the planets do not know.
But the princesses will have to live in it.
What a sad day the day has become.
Outside the car, the cows and pastures are drifting away;
they look calm, but calm is not the truth.
Despair is the truth. This is what
mother and father know. All hope is lost.
We must return to where it was lost
if we want to find it again.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/10/22/childrens-story/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Gl%C3%BCck
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