The Library of Congress announced Glück's appointment as the 12th U.S. Poet Laureate on August 29, 2003.
On August 29, 2003, the Library of Congress announced that Louise Glück had been appointed the twelfth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, serving the 2003–2004 term. The position, established in 1937 and renamed in 1986, is the United States' official poet laureateship, tasked with raising national consciousness of poetry through public readings, lectures, and educational initiatives.
Glück's appointment recognized her standing as one of the most significant American poets of her generation, following a career that had already produced the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Bollingen Prize. As Poet Laureate, she continued the tradition of using the position to foster public engagement with poetry, though she was known for approaching the largely ceremonial role with characteristic reticence, preferring to let her poetry rather than public performance speak for her.
The Poet Laureateship has been held by figures such as Robert Penn Warren, Elizabeth Bishop, and Rita Dove, and Glück's tenure added to this lineage of major American poets entrusted with the nation's most visible literary honor. Her appointment reflected the Library of Congress's recognition of her singular contribution to reshaping the American lyric tradition through her spare, mythologically inflected style, and it further elevated her national visibility ahead of her eventual Nobel Prize win in 2020.