The Private Voice
Review of the Farrar, Straus & Giroux eBook edition (December 15, 2020)

Louise Glück was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature "for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal." As opposed to the large scale banquets of previous years' presentations, the ceremony was an intimate affair held in Louise Glück's garden on Sunday, December 6, 2020 with the honoree and presenter Swedish Consul-General Annika Rembe suitably masked and warmly clothed in the beginnings of this pandemic winter.

Glück's acceptance lecture is very humble and self-effacing. She spends most of the time talking about the poets and poems that inspired her in her young age. These are especially William Blake's "The Little Black Boy" and Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" which are quoted and then also reproduced in full as Appendices to the talk. Glück then concludes with:

It was a surprise to me on the morning of October 8th to feel the sort of panic I have been describing. The light was too bright. The scale too vast.
Those of us who write books presumably wish to reach many. But some poets do not see reaching many in spatial terms, as in the filled auditorium. They see reaching many temporally, sequentially, many over time, into the future, but in some profound way these readers always come singly, one by one.
I believe that in awarding me this prize, the Swedish Academy is choosing to honor the intimate, private voice, which public utterance can sometimes augment or extend, but never replace.

Trivia and Link
I read The Nobel Lecture for Literature, 2020 in the FSG eBook edition as downloaded on loan from the Toronto Public Library. You can also read the lecture in English or Swedish online or download it in pdf format at https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2020/gluck/lecture/ ( )