Marigold and Rose
Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020, for "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal", Louise Gluck takes a new direction in a fable which returns to essential questions, of identity and belonging, of desire and the creative impulse. The twins, Marigold and Rose, in their first year, begin to piece together the world as they move between Mother's stories of "Long, long ago" and Father's "Once upon a time". Impressions, repeated, begin to make sense. The rituals of bathing and burping are experienced differently by each. The story is about beginnings, each of which is an ending of what has come before. There is comedy in the progression, the stages of recognition, and in the ironic anachronisms which keep the babies alert, surprised, prescient and resigned. Charming, resonant, written with Gluck's characteristic poise and curiosity, Marigold and Rose unfolds as a new kind of creation myth.
About the author
Louise Gluck, born in 1943, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for her collection "The Wild Iris". She has published eleven books of poetry and a book of essays on poetry, "Proofs and Theories" (1994). She teaches at Yale University as Writer in Residence and in the Creative Writing Program of Boston University. She was appointed the US Poet Laureate from 2003-2004.