Louise Glück is the author of several collections of poetry, including Firstborn (1968), The House on Marshland (1975), Descending Figure (1980), The Triumph of Achilles (1982), The Wild Iris (1992), and Averno (2006).
In 2014, the year in which Faithful and Virtuous Night was chosen as the National Book Award winner, the other finalists were Second Childhood by Fanny Howe, This Blue by Maureen N. McLane, The Feel Trio by Fred Moten, and Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (who was also an early student of Glück's).
Work by other confessional poets, by whom some say Glück's work is influenced, is also relevant. Examples include Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath (to whom Glück has...