Exam Analysis: Matins 1 from Louise Glück’s The Wild Iris
Poem #2 - Matins 1 (The Sun Shines)
The first Matins poem in The Wild Iris introduces us to the first human voice. Earlier, we had the Wild Iris surprising us with the sheer wisdom and knowledge it has - almost looking down on us for how consumed we are with comfort, and how terrified we are by the prospect of death. And now we get a little bit of normalcy - a human. Glück lets her readers know she is going to switch between perspectives. And do we know why? Not yet.
My initial notes while reading this poem: Glück juxtaposes light imagery with dark imagery, using these contrasts to talk about depression being consuming.
This post is part of a full series exploring The Wild Iris. Browse all poem analyses here →
Poem Analysis
Note for students and close readers:This blog post shares highlights from my line-by-line analysis — not the entire poem. If you’re looking for a full breakdown, literary devices and deeper commentary, I’ve created a $1 PDF study guide you can download below. It’s a compact, annotated version designed to help with exams, essays, and revision.The sun shines; by the mailbox, leaves
of the divided birch tree folded, pleated like fins.
The first Matins poem begins with positive imagery. Notice how the short, measured phrases ask us to slow down — to observe the natural world with the gentle care the speaker sees it with. The opening sentence, “The sun shines”, opens the poem with warmth and clarity, signifying a sun-filled day filled with light. The simile of the leaves of the birch tree “pleated like fins” shows us how everything is proper, arranged and organised — an image of perfection and beauty. These pleated leaves also suggest a delicate and natural complexity we often find in nature (more on this later), and the tone here is one of peace, as the poet observes the pleasant garden scene with the mailbox.
Underneath, hollow stems of the white daffodils,
Ice Wings, Cantatrice; dark
leaves of the wild violet. Noah says
We get juxtaposition here with Glück’s use of contrasting imagery as she shows what lies beneath the poem’s peaceful, sunny surface — an undercurrent of darkness. We were given a hint of this darkness earlier in line 2, where the birch tree is described as “divided”, suggesting a sense of fragmentation — a subtle paradox. We begin to see Glück is suggesting that the sunny disposition of exterior beauty is always supported by dark roots and the undergrowth—or rather, that it hides an underlying darkness. This is what the speaker chooses to focus on and highlight for us.
We also see a tonal transformation as the poet turns her gaze to “hollow stems” of the white daffodils. Daffodils are such beautiful springtime flowers, and the word “hollow” carries negative diction, implying that beneath the beauty lies an emptiness — as if spring is almost pretending, masking, showing off a mere exterior shell. This idea continues with the phrase “dark leaves of the wild violet”, where both “dark” and “wild” contrast sharply with the organised, calm natural beauty mentioned earlier.
Glück doesn’t stop here—she wants to make sure we get the point through capitalisation. The phrases “Ice Wings” and “Cantatrice” stand out as proper nouns, giving them more importance. Wings made of ice suggest something temporary, artificial, ephemeral — they are beautiful but fragile and doomed to melt. Likewise, cantatrice is an Italian word for female singer, basically evoking an idea of a performance — as if spring itself is putting on a show. By foregrounding these two phrases, Glück implies that beneath the elegance of the season lies something more emotionally charged. Spring may be beautiful, but it is also fleeting, and the speaker sees its darkness as more real than its light.
Noah says
depressives hate the spring, imbalance
between the inner and the outer world. I make
While his mother focuses on the darker aspects of springtime, Noah, who is Louise Glück’s son, offers his own perspective. He makes the general statement, “depressives hate the spring, imbalance between the inner and the outer world”. This is something the speaker already knows — she knows she prefers the shadowed, hollowed places over the bright, exposed ones. Too much light has the ability to expose imperfections and makes one feel vulnerable, whereas darkness offers safety and concealment. The poem’s earlier use of juxtaposition — hollow stems, dark leaves — returns here, reinforcing the idea that spring’s surface beauty masks discomfort for those who feel internally dissonant.
Noah, born in 1973, is around 17 to 19 years old as Glück writes this collection, and his voice introduces what feels like an objective and conventional, even clinical understanding of depression — that it stems from a disconnection between the inner self and the external world. Noah is her opposition, an objective understanding almost dismissing his mother’s view as an understanding of the “depressives”, generalised.
Themes
If you are someone exploring how Louise Glück juxtaposes psychological health with natural imagery, you already know the poems in the Matins sequence offer rich portraits of mental health, duality, and the relationships between humans and nature.
1. Nature and Mental Health
The garden in Matins 1 is beautiful and filled with light, and yet we see the speaker focusing more on the darkness of the roots beneath the garden. She sees the artifice of natural beauty, pinpointing how it is temporary and ephemeral ("ice wings") or even empty ("hollow").
This reflects to how Noah interprets mental suffering, as he smartly notes how depressed individuals like the speaker choose to focus on the darker aspects of their environment, much like they focus on the darker aspects of their self. This reflection of our personal thoughts and experiences in nature is not depicted as a bad thing in Matins 1. Instead, it is shown to be something comforting. Here, the depressed individual (Noah's mother) can clearly see herself in the dark hollows of Mother Nature, feeling no need to pretend she is happy.2. Imbalance between the Self and Nature
Secondly, it is important to note that while the speaker recognises herself in Nature, she is not in balance with her natural environment. We get the feeling she would be more comfortable with a season like autumn or winter, and that she does not feel a personal or seasonal alignment with spring-time, or even summer time.
Louise Glück shows us how our mental landscapes can misalign with the rhythms and motions of seasonal changes. The poet's mind is always still, looking inward. And so during spring-time, her internal state actively resists the season's vitality and its growing blooms. This is, as Noah says "an imbalance between the inner and outer world". Here, the outer world, alive with energy and renewal, feels distant or even intrusive to a speaker whose inner world stays quiet and withdrawn. It's more than just a clash of imagery - it reflects a lived, emotional disconnection. Download the Full Study Guide + Worksheet
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Read the analysis of the previous poem: The Wild Iris (poem) – Exam Notes
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