This Great Unknowing: Last Poems

This Great Unknowing: Last Poems
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 82
Release: 2000-09-17
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 0811223191

When Denise Levertov died on December 20, 1997, she left behind forty finished poems, which now form her last collection, This Great Unknowing. 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.

A Poet's Revolution

A Poet's Revolution
Author: Donna Hollenberg
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 531
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520272463

"The first full-length biography of British-born poet Denise Levertov (1923-1997) brings to life a major voice in American poetry during the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing on exhaustive archival research of Levertov's entire opus and on interviews with dozens of the poet's friends, Donna Krolik Hollenberg's authoritative biography captures the full complexity of Levertov's entire opus and on interviews with dozens of the poet's friends, Donna Korlik Hollenberg's authoritative biography captures the full complexity of Levertov as both a woman and an artist, and the dynamic world she inhabited"--Front jacket flap.

The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov

The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-11-07
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9780811237543

The landmark collected work of one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, now in paperback.

Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov
Author: Dana Greene
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2012-09-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0252094212

Kenneth Rexroth called Denise Levertov (1923–1997) "the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, . . . and the most moving." Author of twenty-four volumes of poetry, four books of essays, and several translations, Levertov became a lauded and honored poet. Born in England, she published her first book of poems at age twenty-three, but it was not until she married and came to the United States in 1948 that she found her poetic voice, helped by the likes of William Carlos Williams, Robert Duncan, and Robert Creeley. Shortly before her death in 1997, the woman who claimed no country as home was nominated to be America's poet laureate. Levertov was the quintessential romantic. She wanted to live vividly, intensely, passionately, and on a grand scale. She wanted the persistence of Cézanne and the depth and generosity of Rilke. Once she acclimated herself to America, the dreamy lyric poetry of her early years gave way to the joy and wonder of ordinary life. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, her poems began to engage the issues of her times. Vehement and strident, her poetry of protest was both acclaimed and criticized. The end of both the Vietnam War and her marriage left her mentally fatigued and emotionally fragile, but gradually, over the span of a decade, she emerged with new energy. The crystalline and luminous poetry of her last years stands as final witness to a lifetime of searching for the mystery embedded in life itself. Through all the vagaries of life and art, her response was that of a "primary wonder." In this illuminating biography, Dana Greene examines Levertov's interviews, essays, and self-revelatory poetry to discern the conflict and torment she both endured and created in her attempts to deal with her own psyche, her relationships with family, friends, lovers, colleagues, and the times in which she lived. Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life is the first complete biography of Levertov, a woman who claimed she did not want a biography, insisting that it was her work that she hoped would endure. And yet she confessed that her poetry in its various forms--lyric, political, natural, and religious--derived from her life experience. Although a substantial body of criticism has established Levertov as a major poet of the later twentieth century, this volume represents the first attempt to set her poetry within the framework of her often tumultuous life.

Sands of the Well

Sands of the Well
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1998
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780811213615

Denise Levertov was born in England in 1923. She published her first book of poems in 1946 and moved to America in 1948. 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.

Light Up the Cave

Light Up the Cave
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 314
Release: 1981
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780811208130

This volume of fiction and essays includes three short stories, articles on the craft of poetry focusing on the musical function of the line, and a discussion of the relation of poets to politics.

Breathing the Water

Breathing the Water
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1987
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 9780811210270

"Levertov's master--more than mastery, because she is one of the originators--of contemporary poetic form, informed with a fierce, generous intelligence, can be frightening." --Ursula Le Guin, Washington Post

Poems 1972-1982

Poems 1972-1982
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2001
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780811214698

Three of Levertov's classic volumes are now available in a single edition. Included here are: "The Freeing of the Dust; Life in the Forest; " and "Candles in Babylon".

Oblique Prayers: Poetry

Oblique Prayers: Poetry
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 100
Release: 1984-10-17
Genre: Poetry
ISBN: 081122189X

Over the years, Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation, while yet speaking with the familiar voice of "the poet in the world." Oblique Prayers is arranged in four thematic sections that, taken together, work toward a mature philosophy in equal harmony with public activism and private reflection. A personal mood links the poems of “Decipherings.” In “Prisoners," the poet addresses the continuing horrors of our dark time: genocide, imperialism, impending nuclear holocaust––human degradation in brutal political guise. Levertov is an accomplished translator. With "Fourteen Poems by Jean Joubert," she introduces English-speaking readers to a contemporary French poet whose work is remarkably akin to her own. "Of God and of the Gods," the final section of the book, is informed by a transcendent lyricism that can equate in a breath "a day of spring, a needle's eye."

Tesserae

Tesserae
Author: Denise Levertov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 170
Release: 1996
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780811213370

"A series of mini-memoirs bound together like a mosaic."--Publishers Weekly