Koreman Poem 5
Louise Gluck, "Telemachus' Guilt" (1997)
Louise Gluck writes as if she is the son of Odysseus, Telemachus, in “Telemachus’ Guilt” one of the poems in Gluck’s collection “Meadowlands”, which intertwines poems about relationships between Odysseus and his family with poems about her own relationships as well as poems that help to develop her message in her project. “Telemachus’ Guilt” is a poem that delves into the mind of the lonely and almost bitter Telemachus whose father Odysseus abandoned him and his mother for many years to explore the world and fight in Homer’s “Odyssey”. The poem is one in which Telemachus seems to be looking back on his relationship with his mother, only now understanding that her emotional distance from him was not one of her choice but rather a coping method for dealing with her husbands absence and possibly his death. The poem ends with Telemachus saying, “I hope / she understood how like / her own coldness it was, / a means of remaining / separate from what / one loves deeply.” This end of the poem seems to show the progression of Telemachus and his emotional maturation. At the beginning of the poem he explains that he was bitter and angry with his mother for her detachment, but by the end of the poem, and one can assume near the end of Telemachus’ childhood, he has come to understand that like his acting out, his mother’s detachment was the only way she could deal with the loss of the one she loved.
Telemachus’ Guilt
By Louise Gluck
Patience of the sort my mother
practices on my father
(which in his self-
absorption he mistook
for tribute though it was in fact
a species of rage--didn't he
ever wonder why he was
so blocked in expressing
his native abandon?); it infected
my childhood. Patiently
By Louise Gluck
Patience of the sort my mother
practices on my father
(which in his self-
absorption he mistook
for tribute though it was in fact
a species of rage--didn't he
ever wonder why he was
so blocked in expressing
his native abandon?); it infected
my childhood. Patiently
she fed me; patiently
she supervised the kindly
slaves who attended me, regardless
of my behavior, an assumption
I tested with increasing
violence. It seemed clear to me
that from her perspective
I didn't exist, since
my actions had
no power to disturb her: I was
the envy of my playmates.
In the decades that followed
I was proud of my father
for staying away
even if he stayed away for
the wrong reasons;
I used to smile
of my behavior, an assumption
I tested with increasing
violence. It seemed clear to me
that from her perspective
I didn't exist, since
my actions had
no power to disturb her: I was
the envy of my playmates.
In the decades that followed
I was proud of my father
for staying away
even if he stayed away for
the wrong reasons;
I used to smile
when my mother wept.
I hope now she could
forgive that cruelty; I hope
she understood how like
her own coldness it was,
a means of remaining
separate from what
one loves deeply.
I hope now she could
forgive that cruelty; I hope
she understood how like
her own coldness it was,
a means of remaining
separate from what
one loves deeply.
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