Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life

Notes

Notes Prologue 1. Denise Levertov was known as Denny, Den, and Deno to friends and family . She was born Priscilla Denise Levertoff, but she never used her first name and changed her last name to Levertov in 1949. 2. The original of Eliot’s letter was lost in one of Levertov’s frequent moves, but a copy, dated April 24, 1936, was retained by Eliot. Ronald Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English at Emory University and editor of The Complete Prose of T. S. Eliot, forthcoming from Faber and Faber and The Johns Hopkins University Press, has allowed me to see this copy. Levertov consistently maintained that Eliot’s letter was “lengthy,” but in fact it was fairly abbreviated. 3. Rexroth, Assays, 190. 4. She was the recipient of many literary prizes and honorary doctoral degrees from ten American colleges and universities: Southern Connecticut University, Colby College, University of Cincinnati, Bates College, Saint Lawrence University, Allegheny College, St. Michael’s College, Massachusetts College of Art, University of Santa Clara, and Seattle University. 5. Notebook, March 11, 1997, Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Palo Alto (hereafter DLP), Series 3, Box 11, Folder 8. Her friend and previous occupant of this position, Robert Hass, and others recommended her, but she declined the offer. 6. Pacernick, “Interview with Denise Levertov,” 91. 7. “A Poet’s View,” New and Selected Essays, 241 (hereafter NSE). When no author is cited, assume that the prose or poetry is by Levertov. 8. “Horses with Wings,” NSE, 119. 9. “Biography and the Poet,” NSE, 172-85. In this she offers Walter Jackson Bate’s Keats as a positive example of a biographical study of a poet and refers to the historian Iris Origo who wrote on the strengths and weakness of biography, 184. 10. “The Poet in the World,” The Poet in the World, 112 (hereafter PITW). Denise Levertov 235 11. Ian Reid, “‘Everyman’s Land,’” 74. 12. Pacernick, “Interview with Denise Levertov,” 90. 13. Maureen Smith, “An Interview with Denise Levertov,” 81. 14. Eavan Boland’s blurb in support of Denise Levertov: Selected Poems. Back cover. Chapter 1. “A Definite and Peculiar Destiny” 1. “The Sense of Pilgrimage,” PITW, 67. 2. Rav means Rabbi, and consequently Zalman‘s followers would have referred to him as the Rav. 3. “Illustrious Ancestors,” Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960,77-78 (hereafter CEP). This volume contains early and uncollected poems and poems from The Double Image, Here and Now, Overland to the Islands, and With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads. Unless otherwise indicated, all poems cited are those of Denise Levertov. 4. Sources of information on Denise Levertov’s ancestors, her family, and her early life are Tesserae, 4-11, 12-15, 43-46, 59-64, 65-71, 95-99, 108-9; “Autobiographical Sketch,” NSE, 258-64. This was first published as “Denise Levertov” in 1984 in The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets, edited by Jeni Couzyn ; Light Up the Cave, 3-11, 233-37, 238-43, 244-53, 254-61, 279-82, 283-90 (hereafter LUTC); “Notes on Family –Paul, Beatrice, Olga,” DLP, Series 3.2, Box 14, Folder 7; Quinonez, “Paul Phillip Levertoff,” 21-34; Conversations, edited by Brooker, includes eighteen interviews with Levertov that contain significant autobiographical material. 5. Years later Denise Levertov wrote “An Arrival” (N. Wales, 1897) commemorating her mother’s arrival at the home of the Olivers and her experience of being orphaned and alone. The poem was written for Kenneth Rexroth and first appeared in For Rexroth, 274-75. 6. Denise Levertov always made the claim that the connection to Zalman was through the paternal line and that Zalman was her father’s great-grandfather. See “The Sack Full of Wings,” Tesserae, 1. However, Beatrice Levertoff in an “Editorial,” the Church and the Jews, writes of her husband: “To his father, his grandfather, and to his mother’s uncle, the famous Rabbi Shnoer Salman, [sic] he felt he owed his own preparation.” 7. “A Minor Role,” “Denise Levertov,” Tesserae, 11. 8. Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, 229-46. 9. Ilford has changed substantially over the decades. Today it is a busy and densely populated outer suburb of London with multiple forms of transportation into the city. Its inhabitants represent great ethnic diversity. The Levertov home has now been broken up into four flats, and the front yard, which previously was the site of a garden, is now paved over and used for parking. 10. “Autobiographical...