Product Description
When Denise Levertov died on December 20, 1997, she left behind forty finished poems, which now form her last collection, This Great Unknowing. With thousands of cloth copies already sold, New Directions is pleased to now offer a paperback edition. Few poets have possessed so great a gift or so great a body of work--when she died at 74, she had been a published poet for more than half a century. The poems themselves shine with the artistry of a writer at the height of her powers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Lovely.
Denise Levertov, This Great Unknowing: Last Poems (New Directions, 1999)

I am ashamed to admit that for many years, based on some of her very early writings, I have mindlessly lumped Denise Levertov in with the Beats, specifically a number of the Beats whom I've never been able to stomach (Diane Wakoski being chief among them, with Robert Creeley and that Kelly fellow who used to publish a book every two weeks or so on Black Sparrow running a close second). It took me reading Richard Jackson's fantastic The Dismantling of Time in Contemporary Poetry a year and a half ago, in which Levertov is one of the six poets he discusses in depth, for me to consider changing that idea; by association, he puts her on the same level as such giants as Robert Penn Warren, John Hollander, and the finest living poet working in America today, Charles Simic, among others. My mind shifts gears gradually, sometimes very gradually, and I am just now getting round to giving the late Ms. Levertov another try. I'm quite glad I did, and wish I'd read The Dismantling of Time in Contemporary Poetry when it first came out some twelve years ago.

This Great Unknowing is, not surprisingly, a book overshadowed with the idea of death. Not an uncommon theme for a writer who's approaching the age of seventy-five and knows she probably isn't long for this world. The work herein is also possessed of a great maturity (something many seventy-five-year-old poets never acquire), a fine ear for tonality, and a decided calming of the radical spirit, though it has not gone away entirely. And when the radical spirit comes out, as with most poets, the work does suffer; Levertov, like almost all of her contemporaries, was never big on the art of subtlety. She has, however, over the years taken an increasing interest in letting the story tell itself, so once in a while the pokes at society do manage to find themselves enmeshed in a poem, rather than a political screed. Which puts her well ahead of most of the pack in that regard.

Her work speaks with a quiet authority here, a need for sharing rather than for imparting, and that makes all the difference;

"...In the crook
of an old and tattered snag
something gleams amid the stillness,
drawing the gaze: some bit of heartwood
so long exposed, weather and time
have polished it, as centuries
of awed lips, touching
a hand of stone, rub it
to somber gleaming."
(--"A Cryptic Sign")

or

"...(Meanwhile,
the April sun, cold though it is,
has opened the small daisies,
so many and so humble they get underfoot--
and don't care. Each one
a form of laughter.)..."
(--"Noblesse Oblige")

The few places where it does degenerate into the non-poetry of political rhetoric do cause the book to suffer, but by no means should those few spots (limited to a few lines here and there, never a whole poem) stop you from seeking this book out at your earliest opportunity. Levertov is a fine poet, and this seems an excellent starting point. I know I'll be reading more of her late work, hoping it's this good. ****

Mahatma Denise
I miss Denise Levertov.I never knew her personally, but she spoke to me through her poetry in ways that few others have.I still remember how stunned I was to hear of her death--several months after the fact, in casual conversation with Deborah Larsen, a great-souled poet in her own right.

I've been rereading during these bleak but beautiful winter months Levertov's posthumous poems.To my mind, they offer some of the best work she ever did.They continue her themes of yearning for something that can't quite be uttered, her love for the particular, her striving to reach a level of awareness before which the heart of being will be revealed, and her concerns for justice and for the environment.But now there's a poignancy, a nostalgia, an anticipation--and perhaps an acceptance--to her verse that suggest a woman awaiting the end. I read her words--her sighs, really--and my soul expands just a little bit more than it would've.

One poem especially touches me--"Memory demands so much."Part of it is a fitting swansong for Levertov:

Take me flying before
you vanish, leaf, before
I have time to remember you,
intent instead on being
in the midst of that flight,
of those unforeseeable words.

Farewell, Denise.And thanks.

A fitting memorial
Denise Levertove (1923-1997) was born in London and educated at home. She came to American in 1948 and was introduced to the reading public in "New British Poets", going on to publish more than thirty books of poetry, essays, and translations, as well as enjoying a career as a distinguished university professor. This Great Unknowing is a fitting memorial to her talent as poet and observer of the human condition.

Magnificent poems in a beautiful book.
This book was my first introduction to the poems of Denise Levertov.I heard about it in an essay written by Kathleen Norris in The Christian Century.The poems are strikingly beautiful and accessible to anyone. Levertov captures our imagination with the depth of her insights and thebeauty of her words--not with the obscurity of her images.I have givencopies of this to no less than four friends and each of them have boughtother copies of her works for themselves.Highly recommended. ... Read more

Product Description
Denise Levertov's Selected Poems delivers in a single accessible volume "one of the essential poets of our time" (Poetry Flash).

Culled from two dozen poetry books, and drawing from six decades of her writing life, The Selected Poems of Denise Levertov offers a chronological overview of her great body of work. It is splendid and impressive to have at last a clear, unobstructed view of her ground-breaking poetry—the work of a poet who, as Kenneth Rexroth put it, "more than anyone, led the redirection of American poetry...to the mainstream of world literature."

Described by Publishers Weekly as "at once as intimate as Creeley and as visionary as Duncan," Levertov was lauded as "one of the indispensable poets of our language, one of those few writers to whom it is necessary to pay attention" by The Malahat Review. No poet is more overdue for a single accessible volume; no career could be better to have within easy reach. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Only fair...
A nicely typeset book, good size and excellent introduction by Robert Creeley, Unfortunately, there are horrible errata (e.g. incorrect titles of poems) littered throughout the book. Wish New Directions had paid more attention. This book is fine for an introduction to Levertov, but I would say not for serious study. I have to agree and disagree with other reviews of this. Yes, this book can work as a "Collected Poems of..." as none exist, but "Selected Poems" strip the reader of any context, most particularly the context of "the book"--highlights are nice, but not always, especially here with respect to how much Denise Levertov's poetics changed in reaction to the Vietnam War. If you do pick this up, I highly recommend her correspondence with Robert Duncan as well (UC Press); it's a massive tome, but is very instructive as a guide to her sensibilities toward the public and the private.

Disappointing --
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.

Excellent overview
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.

One of the best of our age
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.
... Read more

Product Description
Conceived as a convenience to those readers concerned with doubt and faith, Denise Levertov's 34 selected poems originally were published in seven separate volumes. The earliest dates from 1978, and the group together more or less traces Levertov's slow movement from agnosticism to Christian faith. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The Stream and the Sapphire
excellent condition, the poems are excellent and very engaging on Christian themes by a "slow to convert" poet -- she has many breath-taking angles on the mysteries of the faith

Levertov profoundly interacts with Christian relgious themes
This collection of "selected poems on religious themes" is not to be confused with religious poetry, or inspirational poetry. Here we have a renowned modern poet from the late 20th Century, who embraced the Christian faith late in life, interacting with spiritual sources that crossed her path while on her journey of faith.

Often one only gets out of a poem what one brings to it, at other times the poem speaks for itself. Both are the case here. Levertov develops a personal dialogue with various texts, personages and paintings, such as Thomas Merton, Julian of Norwich, the Mass for St. Thomas Didymus, Caedmon from Bede's "History of the English Church," Velazquez's "The Servant Girl at Emmaus," Brother Lawrence's "Practice of the Presence of God," "Hail, space for the uncontained God" (from the Orthodox Christian Akathist hymn), as well as numerous New Testament passages.

Some of these poems presuppose at least a nodding acquaintance with the original source. Others, such as those dealing with Christ's suffering on the cross, will be more accessible, since most of our culture still retains an awareness of the life of Christ.

While I struggled through some of these works, knowing that if I took the time I could get much more out of them, others demanded to be read a second and third time immediately.

Such was the case with "Annunciation," which draws on the Gospel account of when the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she is to bear the Son of God: "But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions/ courage./ The engendering Spirit/did not enter her without consent./ God waited./ She was free/ to accept or to refuse, choice/ integral to humanness."

Many still believe that modern poetry and the Christian faith don't mix. Here is proof otherwise. Going through this volume may be like mining for gold for some, but believe me, it's worth the effort. If you like this volume, check out works by Scott Cairns, also found here at Amazon.

Nature in religion
The need for simple groupings of poems into thematic clusters may be too convenient and decpetive of the complexities of the poems themselves. But with Levertov, as with others, there is such a compelling predelictiontowards specific themes and subjects that to do so can be useful.Here wehave her major religious poems in a separate volume, just as there has beena volume of her poems on nature and a deserved volume of her politicalpoems (if one hasn't been published already). These poems do chartLevertov's progressive understanding and acceptance of Christianity, but attheir best they do something else. Their focus is often on natural sceneswhich have a humbling effect. The level sought isn't always that of theoften over-mystified religious ceremony, though there's plenty of mysteryto the poems. In "The Avowel" this effect is achieved throughanalogy, the submissive posture of lying on one's back hearkening not onlya religious submission but one which the speaker is reminded of by thenatural world."As swimmers dare/to lieface to the sky/and water bears them,/ ashawks rest upon air/and air sustains them,/ so would I learn to attain/ freefall, and float/into Creator Spirit's deep embrace,/knowing noeffort earns/ that all-surrounding grace."

The"free-falling" that occurs is much like that effect of flight inGeorge Herbert's concrete poem "Easter Wings," which takes theshape of a bird. Here the use of a center alignment (which is hard for meto approximate) gives the impression of both the "deep embrace"and the fall, each line arrising not from a speakerly margin but from aneed more like song. Again, the groupings of these poems together is afaulty judgement of Levertov's range, yet considering her uncanny abilityto mask her concerns in a seemingly banal tone through everyday language weshould be thankful that these small volumes have been available as studiesinto one of the best American poets of the last half century.

"Straight to the point can ricochet"
This set of books frighten me. Both are powerful and wonderful and deserve your immediate and lasting attention. The poems are not new, they are a themed selection. Interestingly enough placed in seperate but equal volumes.

The Stream and the Sapphire is a selection of poems that elucidate the growth of Denise as a Christian. And an exciting growth it is. My favorite of the moment are words I use as prayer: "How can I focus my flickering, perceive at the fountain's heart the sapphire I know is there?"

The Life Around Us is subtitled "selected poems on nature". In "A Reward", we live a harried day with the narrator and watch with her as "the heron, unseen for weeks, came flying widewinged toward me."

What is probably a marketing tool, a most wise one by the publisher, is what scares me about these two volumes. In theme, the power of God is told in lush detail in both volumes. The heron in the nature selection is the holy spirit of the religious selection, and in our natural state both can and will be the same. Those brief moments of recognition of something outside ourselves.

So with these two volumes to recommend, why should I be trepiditious? The marketing folks know us so well, and as poets we cannot overcome the marketing department. "Christians" are right winged slobs that grow fat and salute the flag and make fools of themselves on TV. They have absolutely no regard for nature because they are Republicans bound and determined to destroy the rainforest. Friends of the natural world cannot be interested in true spiritual life because they worship nature, and are Democrats, and would not consider a Christian a person. A nature person is good and upright and has never done wrong, and therefore has no need of the "crutch" of Christianity.

Crass? Yep. That's why I'm scared of these two books. Because it brings out the crass nature of our commercialized economy. Everything is cut and dry - a cookie cutter product determined and produced by a media that thrives on exacting stereotypes. I can hear the salesman now walking into the Christian bookstore pitching the blue book; and the same salesman waking into the New Age bookstore pitching the green book. I'm saddened and scared that it's come to this - even in poetry. It's been with us in every other aspect of life for so many years now that I guess it had to be inevitable.

Truth is, most Christians live in a more calm life than the wild-eyed frothing at the mouth pentacostal, or the bomb-throwing fanatic at an abortion clinic. It may be surprising to those who only read newspapers and watch tv to find out that many Christians believe God commanded them to take care of the planet. And vice-versa. Not all nature lovers worship the earth as God. Not all folks who are concerned with the environment are anti-Christian. Surprisingly to the media-fed public is the fact that there are many people who love the outdoors who feel abortion is just as wrong as shooting a bald eagle or a snowy songed owl.

Not all republicans are anti-abortion; not all democrats are pro-abortion; and not all those who could care less about politics have no opinion either way. There are many varieties of individuals; and within most of us, I believe strongly, there is a wonderful mixture of all the above. Let's face it, when confronted with a child molester who just raped his child, the strongest anti-abortion catholic would probably much rather kill the man as see him live, even if only for a brief moment. Why? Because we are human.

Which brings this around from a silly sermon back to the issue at hand - Denise Levertov celebrates our humanity. We see Thomas - in some circles known as the twin brother of Christ - struggling with his doubts. We hear in other places the voice of the poet struggling with questions and wandering doubts. In the nature series we hear the narrators of the poems finding a deep peace - if only momentary, a solace - a knowledge. Read together we find these powerful insights are all one insight into our inner selves.

And, slyly, in selecting the poems, Denise was able to confound the marketing department. From the nature series: "God is imaged as well or better in the white stillness resting everywhere, giving all things an hour of Sabbath." And from the religious series: "Dull stones again fulfill their glowing destinies, and emptiness is a cup, and holds the ocean." Why not combine these two selctions of poems into one fine volume? Marketing. Sad, but true. Recently, ND published Robert Duncan's selected - 170+ pages for $12.95. By seperating Denise's poems for a perceived dual market (and unfortunately the perception is probably true), the sales force is able to sell the two slender volumes for $8.95 apiece. A few extra bucks - and because of the targeted audience - a lot more sales!

My recommendation? Confound the marketing department. Buy both books! Praise both books. And praise Denise for giving us such interesting meditations on life. If you can, then read or re-read her past volumes and experience her growth in a more natural form; but if you are in a position of experiencing her poetry for the first time, these two small volumes will be an appetizer that will send you searching to experience the flavors of The Jacob's Ladder, Evenings In Babylon, Evening Train, and quite a few more ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Compassionate, Soulful Poetry
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

Quiet and Calm
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.

Levertov is brilliant
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. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Levertov, Poems. 1960-67 A collection of Levertov's early work ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent poetic compilation
Although varied in style, the poems collected herein comprise an exceptionally consistent and candid view into the mind of Levertov.A must read for anyone interested in her works.A must read for anyone interested in modern poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
Gathered here in one handy volume are 62 poems about nature and the ecology. But, as the author notes in her preface, these are not all praise-poems"celebration and fear of loss are necessarily conjoined." This compact gift-book will have special appeal to those who love Mother Earth. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful.Best Modern Poetry I've read.
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.

Levertov anthology re-collects poems of natural world.
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. ... Read more

Product Description
For the first time in paperback-Levertov's recent poetry, showing her at the height of her literary powers. Sands of the Well, first published in hardcover in 1996, shows the poet at the height of her considerable powers, as she addresses the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest coastal landscape in terms of music, memory, aging, doubt, and faith. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A woman of Beats
If you strive to be a nonconformist, then you must be a lover of the Beat poets. Levertov is one of the few women to break into the leagues of the famous men: Ginsberg, Kerouac, Ferlinghetti, Corso, Burroughs, Bukowski

Levertov's SANDS OF TIME Moves Us Gently toward Last Words
In this collection of Denise Levertov's last poems (1923-1996) we have a fine music moving us with her through commitment and conscience to an act of faith. That faith is in the God she came to connect with during her last years living in Seattle. To know that God, you must read the book and the countless poems of honest and delicate expression bonding us with Nature and humanity. In poem after poem she moves us through and beyond our daily details to a deep awareness of the transparent wonder of being alive. In the eight sections of the book, she captures in intricate detail and clear voice the movement of her life at its close. Her opening poem "What Harbinger?" hints at her own awareness of death's approach; and the final poem "Primary Wonder" answers with a brave acceptance. These are poems as "last words," reminding us of the beauty of our days and the wonder of language to record them. Levertov is America's poet of engagement and wonder.

reading only words
The title "Sands of the Well" may suggest that Ms. Levertov's labor was like eking out words but in them there are a collage from newspaper clippings, a love poem for former lovers and the time she's spent simply writing words. ... Read more

Amazon.com Review
In the title poem of this collection, Denise Levertov againdemonstrates the arresting imagery that has characterized her poeticcareer. Our unchanging perception of self, she writes, is "thedimension / that moves with us but itself keeps still / like thebubble in a carpenter's level." The image does a lot of poetic workfor her, suggesting the way the self is constructed, with hiddenflaws, faintly remembered blueprints, and room for repairs andrevisions. A number of these poems bring to mind Eliot's old term"objective correlative," and rewards the reader's attention withhypnotic language. Here is a longtime favorite at top form. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Denise Levertov Poems
A library book, but a good value for the price I paid, Levertov just died and I just discovered her, a very engaging poet

One of the greatest poets ever...
This is an amaizing book!I have read many of her poems and books and this one is the best one yet.Her depth in writing is so clear and evident, and her portrail of how people feel is exceptional.She tends to really understand people and the human state of mind.If you like any of Sylvia Plath you will difinently love Denise Levertov.Read this book and I hope you enjoy... ... Read more

Product Description
"The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams" is the most engaging and lively of their literary correspondences--at once a portrait of two geniuses, the testimony of their remarkable friendship, and a seedbed of ideas about American poetry. With a 1951 fan letter, the young British poet introduced herself to Williams, declaring: "If a man is a force in one's life [and] is felt to enter the fabric of one's thinking & feelings & one's way of trying to work, he certainly ought to know it. So, thank you." The correspondence begins in Levertov's twenties as her first books appear in the US. By 1959, Williams in congratulating Levertov on her growth: "this book challenge[s] me so that I am glad I am not younger....You have not always written so excellently....I am going to read these first half-dozen poems--maybe more--until as an old man I have penetrated to where your secret is his." The letters also chronicle their search (individually and together) for a set of formal poetic principles, a search which culminated for Levertov in 1965, when she coined the term "organic form." The warmth, the directness,, the flavorsome individuality of the letters--thirty-three from Levertov and thirty-one from Williams--increased with their growing intimacy and mutual regard. Always intriguing, their independent-minded letters, which end with the elder poet's death in 1962, have great piquancy and charm. Denise Levertov herself initiated this project, and was then, in the year before her death, "fascinated to read the exchange." Professor Christopher MacGowan, who edited the definitive "Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams," contributes a superb introduction and intriguing annotations throughout. As James Laughlin, founder of New Directions, said: "For me Denise Levertov is the best of the organic form poets. She has that so important ability that Williams had: she knows where to end the line....Almost immediately she figured out from Williams how to write good free verse." ... Read more

Product Description
Three of Denise Levertov's classic volumes, now available in a single edition. Here gathered for the first time in a single edition are three of Denise Levertov's finest books: The Freeing of the Dust (1975), Life in the Forest (1978), and Candles in Babylon (1982). This new compilation—beginning where Denise Levertov's Poems 1968-1972 left off—testifies not only to Levertov's technical mastery, but also to her spiritual vision, especially in regard to the Vietnam War. Some of Levertov's best war poems, the result of her visit to North Vietnam in 1972, are contained in this marvelous collection. Poems 1972-1982 enables readers to observe a crucial phase in Levertov's poetic development. At the same time, it illuminates Robert Creeley's assessment that she "was a constantly defining presence in the world we shared, a remarkable and transforming poet for all of us." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A volume to be read and re-read --
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.
... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Important Volume
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.
... Read more