In this Book

buy this book Buy This Book in Print
summary
A few days before his death in 1996, Larry Levis mentioned to his friend and former instructor Philip Levine that he had "an all-but-completed manuscript" of poems. Levine had years earlier recognized Levis as "the most gifted and determined young poet I have ever had the good fortune to have in one of my classes"; after Levis's death, Levine edited the poems Levis had left behind. What emerged is this haunting collection, Elegy.

The poems were written in the six years following publication of his previous book, The Widening Spell of the Leaves, and continue and extend the jazz improvisations on themes that gave those poems their resonance. There are poems of sudden stops and threats from the wild: an opossum halts traffic and snaps at pedestrians in posh west Los Angeles; a migrant worker falls victim to the bites of two beautiful black widow spiders; horses starve during a Russian famine; a thief, sitting in the rigging of Columbus’s ship, contemplates his work in the New World. The collection culminates in the elegies written to a world in which culture fragments; in which the beasts of burden—the horses, the migrant workers—are worked toward death; a world in which "Love's an immigrant, it shows itself in its work. / It works for almost nothing"; a world in which "you were no longer permitted to know, / Or to decide for yourself, / Whether there was an angel inside you, or whether there wasn't."

Elegy, as Levine says, was "written by one of our essential poets at the very height of his powers. His early death is a staggering loss for our poetry, but what he left is a major achievement that will enrich our lives."

Table of Contents

restricted access Download Full Book
  1. Front Cover
  2. p. 1
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Title Page, Copyright Page
  2. pp. 2-7
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Contents
  2. pp. vii-9
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Foreword
  2. pp. ix-x
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. I
  2. pp. 1-13
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Two Trees
  2. pp. 3-4
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. In 1967
  2. pp. 5-6
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Oldest Living Thing in L.A.
  2. pp. 7-18
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Anastasia & Sandman
  2. pp. 8-11
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Photograph: Migrant Worker, Parlier, California, 1967
  2. pp. 12-23
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Shiloh
  2. pp. 13-24
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World
  2. pp. 14-25
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. II
  2. pp. 15-27
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Thief in the Painting
  2. pp. 17-18
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Boy in Video Arcade
  2. pp. 19-30
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Cook Grew Lost in His Village, the Village in the Endless Shuffling of Their Cards
  2. pp. 20-25
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. The Smell of the Sea
  2. pp. 26-28
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with a Petty Thief in the Rigging
  2. pp. 29-32
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy for Whatever Had a Pattern in It
  2. pp. 33-39
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. III
  2. pp. 41-53
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with the Sprawl of a Wave Inside It
  2. pp. 43-46
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with a Thimbleful of Water in the Cage
  2. pp. 47-52
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with a Bridle in Its Hand
  2. pp. 53-55
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy for Poe with the Music of a Carnival Inside It
  2. pp. 56-57
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with an Angel at Its Gate
  2. pp. 58-65
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy with a Chimneysweep Falling Inside It
  2. pp. 66-67
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Elegy Ending in the Sound of a Skipping Rope
  2. pp. 68-81
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. 83-95
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
  1. About the Author, Back Cover
  2. pp. 85-98
  3. restricted access
    • Download PDF Download
Back To Top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless.