ABSTRACT
The American poet Louise Gluck makes no explicit allusions to the science of plant consciousness, behaviour, and learning. In 1993, Gluck received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her heteroglossic collection The Wild Iris — the principal work from her oeuvre addressed in this chapter— and the Bollingen Prize in 2001. The chapter suggests that her poetic evocation of plant memory is inter-mnemonic, involving an exchange or "dialogue of memories" between human, vegetal, and other speakers. Insinuations of Gluck's underlying interest in vegetal materialities and her acquisition of botanical knowledge tend to come, instead, in the form of brief reflections in interviews. Gluck framed the text as a liturgical progression from "Matins" to "Vespers" superimposed over the annual cycle of a Vermont garden. With its coterie of flower-speakers endowed with memory, Gluck's The Wild Iris furthermore aligns with the tradition of sapient plants in English literature.
