She has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for her poetry, though here Nobel Laureate and former U.S. Poet Laureate Louise Glück proves herself to be an insightful essayist as well, especially when writing about her fellow poets. She discusses her own influences with shrewd commentary on Rainer Maria Rilke, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Pinsky, while showing her faith in the future of poetry with introductions she wrote for debut collections from Dana Levin, Peter Streckfus, Spencer Reece, and Richard Siken. Also here are Glück's assessment of Thomas Mann's novel Buddenbrooks, and an analysis of her own emotional makeup in "Fear of Happiness."