Marigold and Rose and Louise

In which a fiction prompts a return to poetry.

Marigold and Rose are tiny babies and the narrators of this tiny book. It’s only 52 pages long! Author Louise Glück called it ‘A Fiction’ and that it is: a wonderful, insightful, imaginative tale.

Marigold and Rose tells the story – in their own words/thoughts – of the first year in the life of twins Rose and Marigold. They may be infants with silky skin and enviable lashes, but this is anything but cutesy. These twins are observant, wise, and interesting.

…they were just babies…But we have inner lives, Rose thought.

The twins are smart enough to know their limitations and the differences between them. Rose is social and a flirt, while Marigold is a cautious introvert.

Marigold did not like people. She liked Mother and Father; everyone else had not yet been properly inspected.

At their first birthday party Rose happily smashes her cupcake into the tray of her high chair, tracing designs with her fingers. “How adaptable she is, Marigold thought, with a certain resentment. Go with the flow, Rose thought.”

Marigold likes her interior world and is writing a story in her mind, with her limited vocabulary.

Sometimes she thought she might just skip talking altogether, and wait for writing.

For such a short book, Marigold and Rose is filled with perfection in the form of phrases and sentences that hone in on a truth or a common experience. Like the “father festival” – a sweet way of describing what “happened every afternoon when he came home from work and lifted the twins up in his arms.”

Or this, from Marigold, on coloring and life itself:

It was necessary to acquire the discipline of staying inside the lines before you begin the great work of drawing outside them.

Louise Glück was an essayist and poet and I’m sorry to say I only just discovered her. She passed away in November 2023 and left behind over a dozen books of poetry and two essay collections. She was a Nobel, Pulitzer, and National Book Award winner. Lately I’ve been feeling a pull toward poetry, and this was my sign to dive in.

Marigold and Rose is a complete delight and I hope you savor all 52 pages soon.

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Here’s a gift article you might enjoy NYT Magazine: The Lives They Lived 12.22.2023

This is all about her Nobel Prize https://www.wgbh.org/news/international-news/2020-10-08/american-poet-louise-gluck-wins-nobel-literature-prize