New and Selected Essays
Page 26
I’ve written here only about my childhood, and not at all about the rest of my life and all its experiences of people, places, events; nothing about the mind’s later journeys in literature and the other arts which mean so much to me; nothing about “intellectual stance,” aesthetics, philosophy, religion. But there is, after all, no mystery about all of that: it’s either in my poems or of little interest beyond the merely anecdotal. All that has taken place in my life since—all, that is, that has any bearing on my life as a poet—was in some way foreshadowed then. I am surprised to sound so deterministic, and I don’t mean to suggest that the course of every life is inexorably set, genetically or by childhood experiences, for better or worse; nor that my own life had no options. Possibly I might have been a better person, and certainly a more efficient one in several respects, if I’d had a more disciplined and methodical education, more experience of economic struggle (never rich, and not extravagant, our household nevertheless never lacked for anything), and had not so early felt a sense of vocation and dedication to the art of poetry. But since I did have a vocation, to which some interesting genes contributed, it seems to me that I was fortunate in an upbringing favorable to their development; and this strongly affected my response to subsequent events and opportunities.
Poets owe to Poetry itself a loyalty which may at times be in conflict with the demands of domestic or other aspects of life. Out of those conflicts, sometimes, poetry itself re-emerges. For example, the impulse to reconcile what one believes to be necessary to one’s human integrity (such as forms of political action) with the necessities of one’s inner life, including its formal, aesthetic dynamic, motivates the attempt to write engaged or “political” poetry that is truly poetry, magnetic and sensuous—the synthesis Neruda said was the most difficult of any to attain (but which our strange and difficult times cry out for). Yet sometimes the poems one is able to write and the needs and possibilities of day to day life remain separate from each other. One is in despair over the current manifestation of malevolent imbecility and the seemingly invincible power of rapacity, yet finds oneself writing a poem about the trout lilies in the spring woods. And one has promised to speak at a meeting or help picket a building. If one is conscientious, the only solution is to attempt to weigh conflicting claims at each crucial moment, and in general to try to juggle well and keep all the oranges dancing in the air at once.
* * *
In 1984 Jeni Couzyn asked each of the living poets included in her anthology, The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets, to provide an autobiographical sketch and some sort of statement about poetry.
Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to all those who gave permission to reprint in these essays quoted material from previously published sources: “The Olive” by Harlow Gark, reprinted by permission of the author; “One Day” by Yarrow Cleaves, reprinted by permission of the author; “john” and “good friday” from good woman: poems and a memoir 1969-1980 by Lucille Clifton, Copyright © 1987 by Lucille Clifton, reprinted with the permission of BOA Editions Ltd., Brockport, New York; “Of Earth” and “A Voice” from Common Ground by John Daniel, Copyright © 1988 by John Daniel, reprinted by permission of Confluence Press; “Right Now” and “A Time for Peace” from A Book of Peace by Catherine de Vinck, Copyright © 1988 by Catherine de Vinck, reprinted by permission of Alleluia Press, Allendale, New Jersey; lines from Heavenly City, Earthly City by Robert Duncan (Copyright © 1947 by Robert Duncan), reprinted by arrangement with the University of California Press; “Horologium” by Reidar Eknar, reprinted by permission of the author; “Covenant: Saying Hello to the Land We Will Live With” from Keeping Faith (Grey Spider Press, Seattle, Washington) by Sam Green, Copyright © 1990 by Sam Green, reprinted by permission of the author; “Prayer to the Snowy Owl” from Winter News by John Haines, Copyright © 1966 by Wesleyan University Press, reprinted by permission of University Press of New England; “Black Marsh Eclogue” from A Dragon in the Clouds (Broken Moon Press) by Sam Hamill, Copyright © 1989 by Sam Hamill, reprinted by permission of the author; “I do not know whether each believer” from The Wandering Border (Copper Canyon Press, 1987) by Jaan Kaplinski, translated from the Estonian by Jaan Kaplinski and Sam Hamill, reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press; “Tulips,” “To Speak” and “The Novices” from Poems 1960-1967, Copyright © 1964, 1967 by Denise Levertov Goodman; “Four Embroideries: (III) Red Snow” from Poem 1968-1972, Copyright © 1972 by Denise Levertov Goodman; “A Son” from Life in the Forest, Copyright © 1978 by Denise Levertov Goodman; “The Task” from Oblique Prayers, Copyright © 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 by Denise Levertov; “Making Peace” and “The Sound-Off from Breathing the Water, Copyright © 1987 by Denise Levertov; “To R.D.,” “Flickering Mind,” and “St. Thomas Didymus” from A Door in the Hive, Copyright © 1989 by Denise Levertov: all Levertov material reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation; “Joyous Young Pine” by Tim McNulty, reprinted by permission of the author; “The Chord” from The Rain in the Trees by W. S. Merwin, Copyright © 1988 by W. S. Merwin, reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; “On Prayer” and prose excerpt from Unattainable Earth by Czeslaw Milosz, Copyright © 1986 by Czeslaw Milosz, first published Ecco Press and reprinted by permission; “imperatives” from How I Came to Drink My Grandmother’s Piano by Kathleen Norris, Copyright © 1989 by Kathleen Norris, reprinted permission of the Benet Biscop Press, Blue Cloud Abbey, Marvin, South Dakota; “The Gloves” from The Coming Home Poems by Margaret Randall, Copyright © 1986 by Margaret Randall, reprinted by permission of LongRiver Books; “It Is There” from Breaking Open (Random House, New York), Copyright © 1973 by Muriel Rukeyser, reprinted by permission of The Muriel Rukeyser Literary Estate;. “Easter; Mesilla, N.M. 1962,” from Calendar of Dust Copyright © 1991 by Ben Saenz), reprinted by permission of Broken Moon Press; “Wanting to Die”from Live or Die by Sexton (Copyright ©1966 by Anne Sexton) and excerpts from The Death Notebooks by Anne Sexton (Copyright ©1974 by Anne Sexton), reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company; “In This Place Where Something’s Missing Lives” David Shaddock, reprinted by permission of the author; “Holding the Line at Greenham Common; Being Joyously Political in Dangerous Times,” by Ann Snitow, copyright © 1985, from Mother Jones, February/March 1985 issue, reprinted by permission of the author; “Pilgrimage” and “The Kingdom” reprinted hy permission of the University of Arkansas Press from Poems of R.S. Thomas, Copyright © 1983; “Axis Mundi” by Emily Warn, reprinted by permission of the author; “Horned Purple,” “Winter Sunset,” and “The Wanderer” from William Carlos Williams: The Collected Poems 1909-1939, Volume I, Copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corporation; “A History of Love,” “A Morning Imagination of Russia,” “Approach to a City,” “The Horse Show,” “In Chains,” “The Mind’s Games.” “The Sound of Waves,” ‘To a Poor Old Woman” from William Carlos Williams: The Collected Poems 1939-1962, Volume II, Copyright © 1944, 1948, 1962 by William Carlos Williams: all William Carlos Williams material reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation; “China Trace” by Charles Wright, reprinted by permission of the author; “He Acts” and “Kierkegaard on Hegel” from Tremor by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Renata Gorczynski, translation copyright © 1985 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Books by Denise Levertov
POETRY
Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960
Poems 1960-1967
Oblique Prayers
Poems 1968-1972
Breathing the Water
A Door in the Hive
Evening Train
Sands of the Well
Poems 1972-1982
The Life Around Us
The Stream and the Sapphire
This Great Unknowing: Last Poems
Making Peace
Selected Poems
PROSE
Light Up the Cave
New & Selected
Essays
Tesserae: Memories & Suppositions
The Letters of Denise Levertov & William Carlos Williams
TRANSLATIONS
Guillevic/Selected Poems
Copyright © 1992, 1991, 1989, 1988, 1984, 1982, 1981, 1979, 1978, 1975, 1974, 1972, 1970, 1968, 1966, 1965 by Denise Levertov
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of magazines and anthologies in which some of these essays previously appeared: American Poetry, Anvil, The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Women Poets: Eleven British Writers, Celebrating the Peace: Volume II, Chicago Review, Conversant Essays: Contemporary Poets on Poetry, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams: The University of Pennsylvania Conference Papers, Ironwood, Minnesota Review, New Directions in Prose & Poetry 20, Ohio Review, Poetry, Poetry East, Real Paper, Religion & Intellectual Life, Robert Duncan: Scales of the Marvelous, Spring, What is a Poet?. Due to space limitations, additional acknowledgment for permission to reprint quoted material in these essays will be found on page 265.
Publisher's note: "Williams and the Duende," "Some Notes on Organic Form," Linebreaks, Stanza-Spaces, and the Inner Voice," and "Greaet Possessions" were originally collected in Denise Levertov's 1973 prose volume The Poet in the World (New Directions); "On the Function of the Line," "Technique and Tune-up," "News That Stays News," "Anne Sexton: Light Up the Cave," and "Rilke as Mentor" were first collected in her Light Up the Cave (New Directions, 1981).
Book design by Sylvia Frezzolini
First published clothbound and as New Directions Paperbook 749 in 1992
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Levertov, Denise, 1923-
New & selected essays / Denise Levertov.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-0-8112-1218-2
ISBN: 978-0-8112-2444-4 (e-book)
I. Title. II. Title: New and selected essays.
P53562.E8876N48 1992
New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin
by New Directions Publishing Corporation.
80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011