Sample Poems

Siren
By Louise Glück

I became a criminal when I fell in love.
Before that I was a waitress. 

I didn't want to go to Chicago with you.
I wanted to marry you, I wanted             
Your wife to suffer. 

I wanted her life to be like a play
In which all the parts are sad parts. 

Does a good person
Think this way? I deserve 

Credit for my courage--

I sat in the dark on your front porch.
Everything was clear to me:
If your wife wouldn't let you go
That proved she didn't love you.
If she loved you
Wouldn't she want you to be happy?
A better person. I was
I think now
If I felt less I would be
 
A good waitress.
I could carry eight drinks.
 
I used to tell you my dreams.
Last night I saw a woman sitting in a dark bus--
In the dream, she's weeping, the bus she's on
Is moving away. With one hand
She's waving; the other strokes
An egg carton full of babies.
 
The dream doesn't rescue the maiden.

About “Siren”:
In “Siren,” Glück shows how love can change someone. The waitress in the poem is in love with a man who is already married. She would like to marry the man, but his wife is in the way. No sympathy is shown for the man’s wife: “I wanted to marry you, I wanted/ Your wife to suffer. / I wanted her life to be like a play/ In which all the parts are sad parts. Does a good person/ Think this way? I deserve/ Credit for my courage.”  The waitress does not try to hide what she feels; she admits that she does not want the man’s wife to be happy. Now that she is in love, she now compares herself to a criminal. The second metaphor, in addition to the criminal metaphor, is in the waitress’ dream; in the dream she is talking about the man’s wife. Throughout this poem, Glück shows the effects that love can have on someone.

This poem is about being afraid of being buried. In the poem there is a body and a spirit in a field.  This poem was chosen because it really gives you a very good idea about how someone in this situation would really feel.

The Fear of Burial
By Louise Glück

In the empty field, in the morning,
the body waits to be claimed.
The spirit sits beside it, on a small rock--
nothing comes to give it form again.

Think of the body's loneliness.
At night pacing the sheared field,
its shadow buckled tightly around.
Such a long journey.

And already the remote, trembling lights of the village
not pausing for it as they scan the rows.
How far away they seem,
the wooden doors, the bread and milk
laid like weights on the table.

This poem is about Louise Glück and her father. 
They are walking through the snow. 

I chose this poem because it has good descriptive words, and 

you can really picture in your head what is going on in the poem. 

Snow

By Louise Glück

Late December: my father and I

are going to New York, to the circus.

He holds me

on his shoulders in the bitter wind:

scraps of white paper

blow over the railroad ties.

My father liked

to stand like this, to hold me

so he couldn't see me.

I remember

staring straight ahead

into the world my father saw;

I was learning

to absorb its emptiness,

the heavy snow

not falling, whirling around us.