Louise Glück on writer’s block
“I think everything good in my own work I owe to endurance.”
Welcome to the latest issue of Subtle Maneuvers. Last week, I spent two mornings writing a lengthy second installment of my #blocktober series, and then yesterday I went to re-read it before scheduling the email and—I just wasn’t feeling it. It all seemed so … effortful. Or like a bunch of answers searching for a question. So I decided to scrap it and, instead, present three paragraphs from the poet Louise Glück, who died last week at age 80, and whose thoughts on writer’s block and the writing life have been bubbling in my head all weekend.
SILKWORM NOTIONS
THE YEARNING AND FAILING PARTS
LIVING IN YOUR INCAPACITY
Thanks for reading, as always. This silkworm will be back in two weeks, maybe with the issue I already wrote but didn’t send or maybe with a different one. In the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on diligence, endurance, yearning, failing, reprimands, your favorite Louise Glück poems (I like “Visitors from Abroad”), and related matters.
RELATED ISSUES
From the archive:
"But tell yourself the well is filling up" is one of the most inspiring, refreshing, energetic, positive phrases I've ever read on the writing block subject. Thank you for sharing this.
Thank you for this. Deeply consoling: “I regret being unable to occupy that state constantly, but to be there at all seems a marvel beyond all others”