The Wild Iris Analysis

All poets want to fly and be free. Some poets find it freeing to exercise their creativity within the secure boundaries of a formal metrical structure or rhyme scheme. But other poets—and Louise...

"The Wild Iris" is narrated in the first person, using the pronouns I, me, and my. The speaker addresses us, the readers, as you. But that's about all we get. Readers should never assume that the w...

Time and place in "The Wild Iris" are kind of tricky. We know that the speaker is talking to us, in the present, about something that happened in the past. That much is clear, based on the speaker'...

Louise Glück is a sly poet. And her use of sound is just as subtle as her manipulation of meaning. When you conduct a preliminary sound check of "The Wild Iris," you won't find a lot of honks of t...

It's a good thing that Louise Glück entitled this poem "The Wild Iris." Without the title, readers would really be up the creek without a paddle, since the poem itself contains no recognizable ref...

"The Wild Iris" uses a lot of simple words, including many that contain just one syllable ("there was a door […] Hear me out […] I tell you I could speak"). These are the types of words used in...

"The Wild Iris" draws you in with its simple vocabulary and conversational tone, but the speaker, setting, and message are pretty mysterious. So you'll probably enjoy hiking this trail more than on...

During a recent interview, Louise Glück chatted about her childhood, commenting that she was a "lonely child" and that her favorite authors were her "companions." She further explained that, "My e...

"The Wild Iris" is approved for general audiences, so feel free to read it aloud to your younger brothers and sisters (if you can persuade them to sit still and listen). The poem includes plenty of...

Louise Glück is gaga for Greek mythology. She even based her poetic sequence Meadowlands on the Odyssey—a long poem by the ancient Greek poet Homer—borrowing the characters Odysseus and Penelo...