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Philip Levine and My Pursuit of a Life in Poetry joseph o. legaspi In the fall of 1996, the start of my final year of graduate studies in the Creative Writing Program at New York University, I sat anxiously at a long table in a shabby conference room for my poetry workshop with Philip Levine. I was about to come face-to-face and study with a poet whose reputation for being tough, hard-nosed, and candid preceded him. My trepidation, however, was tempered with giddy excitement because I had admired Philip’s poems for years. They spoke to me like none other: “What Work Is,” “You Can Have It,” “Starlight,” “They Feed They Lion” . . . His work influenced my own work and love of poetry. For me it was a monumental honor just to be in that workshop. The sentiment emanated from my peers as well, the room rife with nervous shuffling and muffled anticipation. Who arrived and presided over the class that first evening was the enigma we expected: a man with bite, direct in his ways, dismissive in his low tolerance for bullshit. Curmudgeon came to mind. But truly, it was a refreshing turn. At that crucial stage of my being a poet, I needed a good jostling, a firm shakedown. Quickly we learned that this man revered poetry and he would instill this reverence in us. And by semester’s end we’d learn—surprisingly, since we were young and did not possess such telescopic foresight—that Philip cared immensely for his students. Not all of us survived: a handful of students dropped out during the early weeks of the 86 semester. Transferred into less demanding, tough-love–averse workshops. But for those of us who stuck it out, we received a profound education in truth seeking and truth telling. I wrote the least during my semester with Philip. But it was also when I learned the most, when I worked the hardest. My classmates and I developed sensitivity in every sense: thick skin and heartbeats. Since he demanded the best from each and every one of his students, Philip reprimanded us for passable work, for lazy writing. Initially, I wrote to please him—the way one tries to please a father, to avoid a scolding. But he saw through that. He then challenged me to believe in my voice, to write as a way of necessary nourishment , and to delve into subjects that are important to me. Philip pushed me to construct my poems beyond the self, to think about my work as it relates to history and the social condition, to view things in a larger, broader context . At the same time, there was a new intensity in my focus and attention to my writing. Is this true?, I’d ask, as I strove for not only factual accuracy, but emotional truth. Philip insisted on meticulous writing always. I began equating creating poems with hard work. This was a primary reason why it was my least prolific semester. Not that I’m a prolific writer to begin with, but I also learned to be more forgiving of myself. Furthermore, through his poems and teachings, Philip gave me license to write about the people in my life: working-class immigrants whose tiniest of lives were no less valid, complicated, and sacred. He dared me to get my hands dirty, digging down to such depths to unearth truth. Because of his narrative aesthetic, subject matter, and rigor, it was then apparent that I needed to work with Philip on my thesis. Aesthetically and politically, we meshed. He was a paradigm of work ethic. With him I could see that I might have a place in poetry. Even though he was not teaching the spring semester and was under no obligation to NYU’s Creative Writing Program, Philip took three to four graduating students under his wing. As our thesis advisor, he made himself readily available and met with each one of us frequently. I treasured my sessions with Philip. They were not completely about grueling poetics and thesis work, either. Many times we simply talked about our lives. Possessing wit and wisdom, Philip was a great storyteller with an anecdote for every turn in the conversation. Here was a man who led an interesting, adventurous life. We talked about politics and mused over art and literature. Apart from providing critiques on my poems, he doled out advice on how to live a life in poetry. Foremost, Philip...

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