Selected Poems 9780811222396, 081122239X
Presents a selection of poems by twentieth-century poet Denise Levertov, composed over the course of six decades.;Prefac
626 22 511KB
English Year 2002
Table of contents :
Preface / Robert Creeley --
Listening to distant drums --
Childhood's end --
Poem ("Some are too much at home in the role of wanderer") --
Too easy: to write of miracles --
The earthwoman and the waterwoman --
The marriage --
The marriage (II) --
Laying the dust --
Everything that acts is natural --
Overland to the islands --
The instant --
Illustrious ancestors --
Action --
Merritt Parkway --
With eyes at the back of our heads --
Pleasures --
To the snake --
Obsessions --
The dead --
Terror --
A common ground --
Come into animal presence --
A map of the western part of the County of Essex in England --
Three meditations --
The Jacob's Ladder --
The tulips --
During the Eichmann trial: "when we look up" --
The ache of marriage --
Song for Ishtar --
Claritas --
The secret --
September 1961 --
O taste and see --
Eros at Temple Stream --
The stone-carver's poem --
The disclosure --
About marriage --
The prayer --
Hypocrite women --
In mind --
The wings --
Joy --
Annuals --
The mutes --
The cat as cat --
Living --
A lamentation --
Olga poems --
The closed world --
Second didactic poem --
Life at war --
To speak --
Bedtime --
Relearning the alphabet --
The broken sandal --
The cold spring --
At David's grave --
What wild dawns there were --
July 1968 --
A cloak --
A tree telling of Orpheus --
Advent 1966 --
Tenebrae --
"Staying alive" --
i. At the justice department November 15, 1969 --
ii. Gandhi's gun (and Brecht's vow) --
Entr'acte 'Let us sing unto the Lord a new song' --
Love poem --
3 a.m., September 1, 1969 --
The wanderer --
The old king --
Memories of John Keats --
To Antonio Machado --
The life around us --
Living alone (I) --
Living alone (II) --
Living alone (III) --
Divorcing --
Libation --
Prayer for revolutionary love --
The freeing of the dust --
The woman --
The life of others --
A woman alone --
Chekhov on the West Heath --
The 90th year --
A soul-cake --
Talking to grief --
Wedding-ring --
Talking to oneself --
Poet and person --
The dragon-fly mother --
Candles in Babylon --
Williams: an essay --
Mass for the day of St. Thomas Didymus --
Beginners --
Concurrence --
She and the muse --
Decipherings --
The avowal --
St. Peter and the angel --
The antiphon --
Of being --
" ...That passeth all understanding" --
The servant girl at Emmaus --
"I learned that her name was Proverb" --
Hunting the phoenix --
The spirits appeased --
Caedmon --
Making peace --
During a song's dangerous illness --
On a theme from Julian's Chapter XX --
The showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416) --
Variation and reflection on a theme by Rilke (The book of hours, Book 1, Poem 7) --
Annuniciation --
Braiding --
Flickering mind --
The love of morning --
Wings in the pedlar's pack --
St. Thomas Didymus --
The life of art --
To Rilke --
A traveler --
A woodcut --
Web --
Ikon: the harrowing of Hell --
Suspended --
Settling --
Elusive --
Effacement --
Presence --
Open secret --
For Bet --
Flowers of Sophia --
Evening train --
Witness --
Salvador mundi: via crucis --
What harbinger? --
Le motif --
In question --
The mystery of deep candor --
Sojourns in the parallel world --
The change --
For those whom the gods love less --
Conversion of Brother Lawrence --
Pentimento --
Sands of the well --
Primary wonder --
Crow spring --
In whom we live and move and have our being --
Celebration --
First love --
Roast potatoes --
The mountain's daily speech is silence --
Once only --
The metier of blossoming --
Enduring love --
Afterword / Paul A. Lacey.
