Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life

Contents, Credits, Word of Gratitude

A Word of gratitude vii Contents Credits ix A Word of Gratitude xiii Prologue 1 1. “A Definite and Peculiar Destiny” 5 2. In Search of Voice 26 3. The Making of a Poet 50 4. “A Cataract Filming Over My Inner Eyes” 73 5. “Staying Alive” 94 6. Endings 113 7. Coming to a New Country 123 8. “The Thread” 144 9. “Making Peace” 163 10. The Borderland 182 11. Bearing Witness 199 12. “Once Only” 216 Epilogue 231 Notes 235 Selected Bibliography 279 Index 299 viii A Word of gratitude A Word of gratitude ix Credits The following texts have been published with permission from New Directions Publishing Corporation: “Making Peace,” “Zeroing In,” “The Spirits Appeased,” “Variation and Reflection on a Theme by Rilke,” “Candlemas,” “On a Theme from Julian’s Chapter XX,” “The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416,” by Denise Levertov, from Breathing the Water, copyright © 1987 by Denise Levertov. “Illustrious Ancestors,” “The Dead,” “The Instant,” “In Obedience,” “The Third Dimension,” “Homage,” “February Evening in New York,” “A Supermarket in Guadalajara, Mexico,” “Scenes from the Life of the Peppertrees ,” “The Way Through,” “The Dogwood,” “Overland to the Islands,” “The Earth Woman and the Water Woman,” “Everything That Acts Is Actual ,” by Denise Levertov, from Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960, copyright© 1979 by Denise Levertov. “The Opportunity,” “Misnomer,” “Witnessing from Afar the New Escalation of Savage Power,” “News Report, September 1991,” “Settling,” “Dream Instruction,” “Tragic Error,” “The Tide,” “Suspended ,” “Contrasting Gestures,” by Denise Levertov, from Evening Train, copyright © 1992 by Denise Levertov. “Recoveries,” “Some Duncan Letters—A Memoir and a Critical Tribute ,” “Rilke as Mentor,” “On Muriel Rukeyser,” “With the Seabrook Natural Guard in Washington, 1978,” “The Edge of Darkness: What Is Political Poetry?” by Denise Levertov, from Light Up the Cave, copyright © 1981 by Denise Levertov. “A Poet’s View,” “Horses with Wings,” “Autobiographical Sketch,” “Work That Enfaiths,” “Poetry, Prophecy, Survival,” “Paradox and Equilibrium,” x A Word of gratitude “Some Affinities of Content,” by Denise Levertov, from New and Selected Essays , copyright © 1992 by Denise Levertov. “ . . . That Passeth All Understanding,” “Of Being,” “The Avowal,” by Denise Levertov, from Oblique Prayers, copyright © 1984 by Denise Levertov. “The Ballad of My Father,” “Olga Poems,” “The Mutes,” “Psalm Concerning the Castle,” “City Psalm,” “Living,” “Come into Animal Presence,” “The Jacob’s Ladder,” “During the Eichmann Trial,” “A Common Ground,” “Matins,” “Three Meditations,” “The Thread,” “September 1961,” “O Taste and See,” “Earth Psalm,” “Claritas,” “The Runes,” “Song of Ishtar,” “Hypocrite Women,” by Denise Levertov, from Poems 1960-1967, copyright © 1983 by Denise Levertov. “Advent 1966,” “Part III,” “Part IV—Report,” “At the Justice Department, November 15, 1969,” “Relearning the Alphabet,” “To Kevin O’Leary, Wherever He Is,” “By Rail through the Earthly Paradise, Perhaps Bedfordshire,” by Denise Levertov, from Poems 1968-1972, copyright © 1987, by Denise Levertov. “A Woman Alone,” “A Daughter, I,” “A Daughter, II,” “Death Psalm: O Lord of Mysteries,” “Death in Mexico,” “Greeting to the Vietnamese Delegates to the U.N.,” “On the 32nd Anniversary of the Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” “Human Being,” “The 90th Year,” “In Memory of Muriel Rukeyser,” “The Wealth of the Destitute,” “A Poem at Christmas, 1972, during the Terror-Bombing of North Vietnam,” “Modes of Being,” “The Woman,” “Divorcing,” “Beginners,” “For the New Year, 1981,” “Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus,” “Writing in the Dark,” “A Woman Meets an Old Lover,” by Denise Levertov, from Poems 1972-1982, copyright © 2001 by Denise Levertov. “Primal Speech,” “Protesting at the Nuclear Test Site,” “What Harbinger ?” “Advising Myself,” “In the Woods,” “The Beginning of Wisdom,” “Primary Wonder,” “What Goes Unsaid,” by Denise Levertov, from Sands of the Well, copyright © 1996 by Denise Levertov. “Janus,” “The Voice,” by Denise Levertov, from Tesserae, copyright © 1995 by Denise Levertov. Letters from Denise Levertov to William Carlos Williams and from William Carlos Williams to Denise Levertov, from The Letters of Denise Levertov and William Carlos Williams, edited by Christopher MacGowan, copyright © 1998 by The Denise Levertov Literary Trust, Paul A. Lacey and Valerie Rapport , Cotrustees, copyright © 1998 by Paul Williams and The Estate of William Eric Williams. x credits A Word of gratitude xi “The Poet in the World,” “The Sense of Pilgrimage,” “Williams and the Duende,” “William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963,” “Origins of a Poem,” “H. D.: An Appreciation,” “A Testament and a Postscript,” “From ‘Writers Take Sides on Vietnam...