The Letters of Robert Duncan and Denise Levertov

by Robert J. Bertholf, Albert Gelpi (Editor)

This volume presents the complete correspondence between two of the most important and influential American poets of the postwar period. The almost 500 letters range widely over the poetry scene and the issues that made the period so lively and productive. But what gives the exchange its special personal and literary resonance is the sense of spiritual affinity and shared conviction about the power of the visionary imagination. Duncan and Levertov explore these matters in rich detail until, under the stress of dealing with the Vietnam War in poetry, they discover deep-seated differences in the religious and ethical convictions underlying their politics and poetic stance. The issues that drew them together and those that drove them apart create a powerful personal drama with far-reaching historical and cultural significance. The editors have provided a critical Introduction, full notes, a chronology, and a glossary of names.

Genres: Poetry

896 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishing. A great Russian novel in epistolary form. This book will tell you how such a thing as a mainstream in American poetry happened; it doesn't just tell you, it enacts it. What we want from a book of letters between writers we admire is for the ideas to matter. To get to the final letter here, where Levertov addresses Duncan's lover Jess, the friendship having been, by Levertov, quit, is to have come to an almost inexpressible devastation. The relationship between these two was erotic, never consummated, and when it goes wrong all hell breaks loose. And it breaks loose against the backdrop of Vietnam, the Alabama Church Bombing (from which he recoils) and the Pentagon March (which her husband organized, and the two of them marched in). This is the best synopsis of this period (the postwar) I know. Days, weeks of my life were lost to this book but now I don't need the weeks and I have the book.

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know that the Duncan/Levertov correspondence is either “the most important exchange between two American poets in the second half of the twentieth century” or the grand poetic slap-off between “a gnostic … and an incarnational theology” that Al Gelpi claims in the Intro it is, but I found a lot in the bristling exchanges over the Vietnam War (Duncan I guess as the ‘gnostic’ protester, Levertov the hand-in-the-wound incarnational) to warm the embers of our ‘poetry as protest’ conversations today. This may have less to do with Levertov and Duncan’s continuing influence than with the continuous succession of wrongheaded U.S. wars poets keep having to face. Aside from the war stuff, it’s fun to listen in on learned poets writing to each other about other now famous poets in less than reverential ways, and to fantasize about the days when real stamp-and-glued-flap letters like this got swapped over years and years; the gender politics implicit in the correspondence is also compelling. I’ll have to spend more time with it though, sifting the quotidian from the “second half of the twentieth century” important, to have the transformational experience that other friends who’ve reviewed this here did. While I wait, there’s gems like this (Duncan to Levertov on Bay Area readings, 1957):

“So it’s only one reading--which hereabouts means an hour to an hour and a half....The audiences here are avid and toughend--they’ve survived top poetry read badly; ghastly poetry read ghastly; the mediocre read with theatrical flourish; poets in advanced stages of discomfort, egomania mumbling; grand style, relentless insistence, professional down-the-nosism, charm, calm, schizophrenic disorder, pious agony, auto-erotic hypnosis, bellowing, hatred, pity, snarl, and snub.”

[David Bjorlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is marvelously edited and fascinating, but boy, I find it hard not to be put off by the pedantry of Duncan through the whole thing (even when he had a few worthy points in his criticism) and felt a sort of relief when Levertov finally called him on it toward the end.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 5 out of 5]

A doorstop of a book, a painted box of treasures. One more book I'll never finish completely, but I love dipping into this long correspondence between two American originals. Robert Duncan was a genuine visionary. And Denise Levertov? She's one of those poets for whom I feel only gratitude. (I'm not a religious person, but some of her poems have the quality of sacred texts for me.) Denise and Robert loved each other and took poetry with ultimate seriousness – as both an art and a calling – only to fall apart over the possibility of political poetry.

This is an excellent collection and an exceptionally handsome book, even in paperback.

[Jared · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably the most important book on art & aesthetics, art & friendship, art & the art of living, at least for me. A book full of little bits of paper. There's a moment where Duncan breaks into a poem in the middle of a letter to Levertov, and then tries to finish the letter! Incredible!

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

As important a book about poetics as it is a literary history for its period. One of my half-dozen favorite books in the last decade.

[Kevin P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only better book of letters in the 20th Century are the Pound/Williams, really!