Poems of Denise Levertov, 1960-1967

by Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov’s Poems 1960-1967 brings together all of the poetry first published in The Jacob’s Ladder (1961), O Taste and See (1964), and The Sorrow Dance (1967). Denise Levertov’s Poems 1960-1967 brings together all of the poetry first published in The Jacob’s Ladder (1961), O Taste and See (1964), and The Sorrow Dance (1967). This new compilation, beginning where her Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960 (New Directions, 1979) left off, shows both a refining of the poet’s craft and a widening of her concerns.” We are living our whole lives in a state of emergency,” she wrote in 1967. Levertov’s staunch antiwar stand is reflected here in such poems as “Life at War” and “What Were They Like?” with what Kenneth Rexroth called “the special luster of a sensibility that never sacrifices humaneness to intensity.” Side by side with her poetry of protest is that of celebration―“Song for Ishtar,” “Come into Animal Presence,” “ Luxury”―and tolerance for “The Mutes” uttering “those groans men use/passing a woman on the street…to tell her she is female” as well as for “The Ache of Marriage.” Here also are a meditation “During the Eichmann Trial,” “Olga Poems” (a sequence in memoriam), and “Say the Word,” the poet’s first published story.

Genres: Poetry

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1983

About the author

American poet Denise Levertov was born in Ilford, Essex, England. Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, was Welsh. Her father, Paul Levertoff, from Germany migrated to England as a Russian Hassidic Jew, who, after converting to Christianity, became an Anglican parson. At the age of 12, she sent some of her poems to T. S. Eliot, who replied with a two-page letter of encouragement. In 1940, when she was 17, Levertov published her first poem.

During the Blitz, Levertov served in London as a civilian nurse. Her first book, The Double Image, was published six years later. In 1947 she married American writer Mitchell Goodman and moved with him to the United States in the following year. Although Levertov and Goodman would eventually divorce, they had a son, Nickolai, and lived mainly in New York City, summering in Maine. In 1955, she became a naturalized American citizen.

During the 1960s and 70s, Levertov became much more politically active in her life and work. As poetry editor for The Nation, she was able to support and publish the work of feminist and other leftist activist poets. The Vietnam War was an especially important focus of her poetry, which often tried to weave together the personal and political, as in her poem "The Sorrow Dance," which speaks of her sister's death. Also in response to the Vietnam War, Levertov joined the War Resister’s League.

Much of the latter part of Levertov’s life was spent in education. After moving to Massachusetts, Levertov taught at Brandeis University, MIT and Tufts University. On the West Coast, she had a part-time teaching stint at the University of Washington and for 11 years (1982-1993) held a full professorship at Stanford University. In 1984 she received a Litt. D. from Bates College. After retiring from teaching, she traveled for a year doing poetry readings in the U.S. and England.

In 1997, Denise Levertov died at the age of 74 from complications due to lymphoma. She was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.

Levertov wrote and published 20 books of poetry, criticism, translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honors, she received the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lannan Award, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Reviews

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 4 out of 5]

To the Reader

As you read, a white bear leisurely
pees, dyeing the snow
saffron,

and as you read, many gods
lie among lianas: eyes of obsidian
are watching the generations of leaves,

and as you read
the sea is turning its dark pages,
turning
its dark pages.


Come into Animal Presence

Come into animal presence.
No man is so guileless as
the serpent. The lonely white
rabbit on the roof is a star
twitching its ears at the rain.
The llama intricately
folding its hind legs to be seated
not disdains but mildly
disregards human approval.
What joy when the insouciant
armadillo glances at us and doesn’t
quicken his trotting
across the track into the palm brush.

What is this joy? That no animal
falters, but knows what it must do?
That the snake has no blemish,
that the rabbit inspects his strange surroundings
in white star-silence? The llama
rests in dignity, the armadillo
has some intention to pursue in the palm-forest.
Those who were sacred have remained so,
holiness does not dissolve, it is a presence
of bronze, only the sight that saw it
faltered and turned from it.
An old joy returns in holy presence.

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where is my life? Where is my life?
What have I done with my life?
*
and so many within themselves
travel to far islands but no one
asks for their story
*
Grief, have I denied thee?
Grief, I have denied thee.
[…]
Always denial. Grief in the morning, washed away
in coffee, crumbled to a dozen errands between
busy fingers.
[…]
There are hidden corners of the sky
choked with the swept shreds, with pain and ashes.
Grief,
have I denied thee? Denied thee.
*
You wanted
to shout the world to its senses,
did you?

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Denise Levertov. I've read this book at least 500 times, and nearly every other page has a dog ear.

Levertov is an amazing poet with incredible things to say, and I'm so glad she enriched this world with her elegantly honest poetry.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Consisting of three books of poetry Levertov wrote, this collection includes some of her most famous and powerful anti-war poetry as well as reflections on her mother as she passed on. Important early work of this influential poet.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

MUCH better than the preceding volume; Levertov settling into a definite voice, stance, outlook. her misses miss hard, almost like Rupi run through a few issues of POETRY mag, but when she hits, it’s like she’s describing the contours of a country no one else can see

[Denise M · Rating 5 out of 5]

One to re-read. It's been a while :)

Goodreads quotes her: “You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.”

If you are interested in poetry, open up some poetry books, and let this be your mantra.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my favorite book of poetry of all time. i have based several art pieces on it, and will continue to. i accidentally have the copy from the dave at wsu. shhh.

[Jayvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a short story in here, and it's the first short story that Levertov had published if I remember it right. It's very simple, haunting, and makes me want to find more of her work outside poetry. She already has a particular somber eye that she conveys that I appreciate (especially in the beginning of her probably most famous work (Selected Poems), but in that story I found tragedy.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

The three books, I’d guess, that made Levertov’s career as an American poet. The deep image, the focus on the natural world, the beginnings of protest against the Vietnam War are all here—as are a gentle attention to love and family, reflections of her father’s Jewish heritage, a “liberal” kind of Christianity. Levertov made the jump into free verse in the ‘50s, sooner than some of her contemporaries, and it may be that some of them were watching her carefully.

[Anastasia Walker]

Friends in grad school loved Levertov, and I finally got around to reading some of her poetry late last year. As someone who writes poetry, I always read poetry with an eye to craft. How does the poet use to the tools of genre? The thing that struck me most about Levertov's craft was the varying length of her lines: the way her lines comprised sense units irrespective of meter or what might be called visual decorum, lines of wrap-around length following one-word lines, say, with a logic derived from the individual poem -- form and content in symbiosis in the best tradition of free verse.

But of course poetry worth reading captures our attention first and foremost through the quality of its language, and this collection of Levertov's 1960s work has more than its share of luminous bits. To cite just a couple of examples I flagged as I read:

The attention
lives in it as a poem lives or a song
going under the skin of memory.
(from "Kingdoms of Heaven")

Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,

knows it's a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace,
they'd pass her in silence:

so it's not only to say she's
a warm hole. It's a word

in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down

in decrepitude.
(from "The Mutes")

Probably my favorite pieces from the collection were the "Olga Poems" from her 1967 book, "The Sorrow Dance." They stand out in this collection as more personal, and heartfelt. I was often struck, and occasionally wowed, by her other pieces, but the "Olga Poems" moved me.

Levertov doesn't need any endorsement from me, but I'll add it anyway for what it's worth.

[Amadeus Knave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Utterly original. Venerates nature in the Romanticist vein: sees the natural world as the ultimate muse, most complete mirror of the soul. But much more dynamic. You won’t find “maggots in voluptuous unrest” and “seaweed-seething” in Keats, now will you? The easy-to-abuse “I” has largely been effaced in favor of mining nature’s bounty. This can make for some hermetic and even "icy" reading. Scientific observations of nature that shut selves out that aren't Levertov's. Hyper-specific and incantatory use of names of flora. “What’s a ‘liana’?” you ask already, midway through the very first poem. In these bursts of ultra-clear image and propulsive private rhythms, I can’t help but be reminded of Levertov’s poetic predecessor, Hilda Doolittle. Both wave their Eros- and Muse-infused wands often and keep the mysterious flame of antiquity vital. A deep preoccupation with the sacred.

When Levertov does indulge in the first-person, though, and focuses on other people in general, as opposed to plants and animals, it’s intense. Accordingly, her anti-Vietnam War stuff is terrific. Crystal scenes of sorrow and empathy.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Levertov's "The Servant Girl at Emmaus" and decided to read her other work. This volume contains earlier poems: pre-conversion, sometimes spiritual, sometimes sensual, sometimes political. About 1/5th of the 156 poems demanded I reread them. Some others were sealed too tightly for me to pry them open.

[Dayna Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good collection of Levertov's poetry; fans of Levertov will love this collection. Those who have not yet experienced Levertov's poetry could do worse than starting here.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

First two books pure magic- the third is still great but not quite as immediately seizing.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 3/4 stars

[Ryan Bry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an entirely bright book of poems - a cobblestone path leading to a reality-scape where objects are in a stormy but clarifying flux. You can tell these poems are painstakingly arranged, as Levertov went to her most agonized perception to deliver a honey of her words that could delight even the most desperate god. I was put together during the reading of these works of knitted light - refreshed in the quizzical abundance. Thank you Denise Levertov, and may your rest be found in eternity where we will have an unbreakable amount of time to leap into world-gazing and finding shadows and light on our bodies that were born to fascinate ourselves and even the stars.

[Kevin Mckinney · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are a few poems I liked a lot in this, but overall I had a lot of trouble finding my way into them. Probably going to read "Some Notes on Organic Form" and see if I can get a better hold on them when I'm a few months smarter lol

[SmarterLilac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Levertov can be a little too cold for my taste, but I like this period of her work.