The ambition to create is indistinguishable from the fear, verging sometimes on conviction, that you can never do so. Glück’s genius as a poet was reflected in her keen understanding that the craft returns us all to childhood, helpless and desperate for mastery. Her equally remarkable generosity as a teacher meant that she could never be less than honest with students about the reality of this process. A writer’s life is dignified “by yearning,” she believed, “not made serene by sensations of achievement.” Write anything you want, just make sure it’s not dead, she told us, knowing that we would most certainly write things that were dead—but that it was up to us where we went from there. —Jiayang Fan

 https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/louise-gluck-remembered-by-writers