Denise Levertov Books

One of the best contemporary poets travels from delight at the simple wonders of nature, through urban riches, confrontations with the dissolution of marriage and its consequences, including the twins loneliness and liberation, to the disaster that is war, especially US involvement in Viet Nam and its destructive consequences, and many points in between. Those who were attentive adults during the years encompassed here will appreciate how accurately Levertov renders and records the objective political history of the period, and recognize in themselves her anguished responses to it.

This (as with the several companion volumes of similar title) incorporates into one what were originally three separate volumes, including that I (with many) consider her strongest, "The Freeing of the Dust," in chronological order. In view of the usual quality of the poetry, and generosity of the poet, this is more than a bargain for the price; even more so at less-than-list. It is probably my favorite Denise Levertov collection, most consistently strong and confident, but there are so many "favorite" poems throughout her books that though one might begin here, it is only to begin . . . (As important for the period, if you can find it, is her 1973 volume of essays "The Poet in the World".)

The cover, and the printed pages, are in black-and-white -- perfect for reading in late quiet evening while there's snow on the ground. Or during quiet grey Winter afternoon with only the hushed noise of falling snow. Or in Spring or Summer amid noisy green nature.

The poems about Olga hurt. When I read them, I began to understand what my sister had been going through for years, a slow downward spiral of mental illness and passion. Levertov's poetry allowed me to hurt less.

Levertov's poems in Breathing the Water don't make you want to go out, run and jump for joy or sorrow. Rather, they tug intellegently at the heart and consciousness. Take the poem "Making Peace." The first line says "A voice from the dark called out, 'The poets must give us imagination of peace'. What a wonderful way of saying what she has to say. Her account of Ernest Chausson's death was imaginative and made me want to inquire further. I didn't find the poetry to be so wonderful, that I wanted to give this slim volume a "5," but I liked them, all of them, so it deserves a "4" in my humble opinion.

I picked up this little book because the title intrigued me. This is the first book of poetry I purchased by Ms. Levertov and I fell instantly in love with the depth, beauty and soulfulness of the poems.

I highly recommend that you read it and memorize some of the amazing poems.

This is my favorite:

VARIATION ON A THEME BY RILKE

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov has a brilliant grasp on sin and its consequences and an eye and ear for beauty ever bit as keen as Mary Oliver's. This is an enjoyable, meaningful book of poems that earthy subject matter. Multiple readings are certainly rewarded.

I was delighted with this little book of poems on nature. I enjoy her writing style and her imagery. Each poem is a little gem, and I haven't felt that way about poems for awhile.

Poet Cora Brooks has written, "Forgive these words, they are not birds." Academic philosophers have built careers upon speculations that what most of us call Literature is a falsehood, an intellectual sham or circus trick. Meanwhile, for altogether different reasons, imaginative writers continue to wrestle, as they have always done, with the difficulty of accurately catching in words the dizzying vivaciousness of being alive. A recent book by Denise Levertov celebrates both the effort and joy of reaching with language for a momentary grasp of the "realness" of the natural world - a realm we experience through a perpetually shifting range of sights, sounds, and feelings. Consider the one-line poem of Cora Brooks, one fluent gesture, one rapidly balanced and articulated sentence. The poet concedes the inability of words to embody the actual winged miracles that surround us, yet with equal verve demonstrates how suddenly poetry can penetrate an ordinarily distracted mind. The reader knowledgeable about craft would recognize the phrasing as perfect iambic tetrameter, with a strong and pivotal caesura or pause in the middle, but you don't need to know this to get a rush of sensations from the line. Literary-critical theorizing seems extraneous under the glancing blow of that poem. Denise Levertov, who died in December 1997, was the author of more than twenty books of poems. The longevity and breadth of her influence upon readers and writers since the 1950s has been underscored by poet Kenneth Rexroth, who praised her as "the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, the most modest, the most moving." Levertov's longtime publisher has recently released two pocket-sized, clothbound anthologies drawing upon collections published in all phases of her writing life. [ital] The Life Around Us, which I'll describe here, is thematically organized around poems that meditate upon our relationships with nature. The book is handsomely composed, intended to be carried along like a book of common prayer. As ever in this poet's work, the music is richly detailed, awestruck as well as elegiac. Here is "The Willows of Massachusetts": [indented] Animal willows of November in pelt of gold enduring when all else has let go all ornament and stands naked in the cold. Cold shine of sun on swamp water, cold caress of slant beam on bough, gray light on brown bark. Willows - last to relinquish a leaf, curious, patient, lion-headed, tense with energy, watching the serene cold through a curtain of tarnished strands. Levertov works like a spider, drawing out from within her body lines as fine as gossamer filament, yet resilient and adhesive. Actual spider web is, relative to its breadth, one of the toughest materials on Earth - the same substance enlarged would be stronger than steel cable, capable of spanning bridge supports. Like spider web, by design Levertov's poems are as much a matter of gaps and openings as anchored fibers. And she's as industrious as the prolific orb spinner whose web-works are ripped to tatters and who simply re-commences, because that is her nature and need: [indented] Everything is threatened, but meanwhile everything presents itself: the trees, that day and night steadily stand there, amassing lifetimes and moss, the bushes eager with buds sharp as green pencil-points . . . Her poems can at times seem didactic or excessively emotive, to a degree that evades rather than engulfs the reader, but following the course of Levertov's books for years, one comes over and over to scores of indispensable poems as well as some of the most gorgeous and intricate essays ever written on the tactile craft of writing. These are all the more piercing for originating in an age when the survival of no species or habitat can be taken for granted. As the poet observes in her foreword to [ital] The Life Around Us, "In these last few decades of the twentieth century it has become ever clearer to all thinking people that although we humans are a part of nature ourselves, we have become, in multifarious ways, an increasingly destructive element within it, shaking and breaking the `great web.' So a poet, although often impelled . . . to write poems of pure celebration, is driven inevitably to lament, to anger, and to the expression of dread." An artist as consummately confident as Levertov tends not to despair at the distance between word and world, but instead uses every resource at hand so as to completely inhabit the interval itself.

Lacey's bias is such that his selection results in an overemphasis on religion, religion, religion, and more religion. One would have hoped that New Directions would have chosen someone who could actually embrace, in equal measure, Levertov's entire range -- which was not so narrowly confined to religion, religion, religion, and more religion. (The Duncan-Levertov letters suffer the same bias from Albert Gelpi.)

What is it about the "securely" religious that they must infect everything they touch with their private, personal preference?

A better choice would probably have been Robert Creeley, who was at least able to transcend that narrow straightjacketing myopia.

Denise Levertov is among the very best of what I've encountered. There are many people who can win attention by using a clever metaphor or speaking about things that have shock value. But levertov is restrained in these matters. She is plain, direct, subtle, but a genius of music, measure, and lyric intensity. Her poetry carries the art to another level. Hers is the kind of poetry that cannot be translated into another language because it so efficiently and masterfully uses the material of the English language. Every word is crucial, with not a syllable extra. The effect is powerful,ecstatic, unforgettable.

Levertov stands out not only as one of the greatest modern poets, but also as penetrating mystic and spiritual thinker. Denise Levertov lived during one of the most violent times in history, from World War I to the Vietnam War. She was a prominent anti war and environmental activist, and in her poetry we feel her sense of injustice at these ills. Yet despite all of these things, she celebrates the world and existence, and sees human beings as courageous beings despite their penchant for destruction. We feel her enormous capacity for joy, anger, sadness, but these are observed from a spiritual center that casts a universal understanding and compassion. She speaks often of the physical, of joy being present here and now, the need to engage our senses, and of being open to mystery and beauty. While she is deeply engaged by the tastes and textures of our world, at the same time she penetrates to the heart of creation, revealing the unifying spirit at the basis of it all. She converted to catholicism in later age, but she is never interested in dogma, and celebrates doubting Thomas in her Christian poems. Levertov dwells in the liminal space between what is known and unknown, doubt and belief, connection and disconnection. Her exceptional intelligence, wisdom, and compassion combined with her poetic mastery makes her truly a diamond in a sea of lesser jewels.

A book to savor, treasure, and recommend over and over.

This is the most important collection of Levertov's poetry. It takes a sampling from every collection she published, showing the growth and versatility of her poetic line. If there is no Collected Poems, where one can have everything, then this gives an acceptable one-volume representation that is quite worthwhile.

As Denise Levertov is one of my most favorite poets; and as her work was of major importance during her lifetime, the political in it being no small reason for that; and because the question at the core -- "Do poetry and politics mix?" -- is perennial, central, and ultimately unanswerable to the conclusive satisfaction of either side of the debate, this is an important book. ("The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov," by the same editors, to which this can serve as introduction, is an epic intimacy, wholly unselfconscious, and for that reason a treasure of insights not only into the individual letter writers but also into their shared and separate aesthetics.)

The essays themselves are something of a mixed bag, in my view, as is often the case with collections of essays. In several instances, as example, a writer of an essay is so self-involved, and so enraptured with name-dropping and self-rpomotion, that during the reading of such one forgets it is intended to be not about the writer, but about Duncan and Levertov.

Over all, as well, it suffers the usual problem that afflicts literary criticism: Often in the reading it one shrugs and asks, "Who cares?" then returns to reading (in this instance) Levertov's poetry. Yet no harm done, for the occasional biographical information (there is a biography of Levertov in the works), and if one can keep one's patience with that which -- literary criticism -- is by-and-large beside the point.

I enjoyed most of it; and will keep it with my Levertov. But at this point I'd rather the forthcoming biography.