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Simple Truths Signed
Philip Levine's 15th collection of poetry muses on the past--everything from friends lost, decisions made and potatoes eaten is remembered and considered. With humor and strikingly modest wisdom, Levine mingles realism and romanticism, producing fascinating, emotionally persuasive shifts and tonal modulations that epitomize a lived truth. As he laments his losses, he is also stoic, bending to acknowledge the misfortunes of others in total sympathy. The Simple Truth was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1995.
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First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Philip Levine
137 books154 followersPhilip Levine (b. January 10, 1928, Detroit, Michigan. d. February 14, 2015, Fresno, California) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit.
He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He is appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012.
Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit, the second of three sons and the first of identical twins of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Harry Levine owned a used auto parts business, his mother Esther Priscol (Prisckulnick) Levine was a bookseller. When Levine was five years old, his father died. Growing up, he faced the anti-Semitism embodied by the pro-Hitler radio priest Father Coughlin.
Levine started to work in car manufacturing plants at the age of 14. He graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1946 and went to college at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he began to write poetry, encouraged by his mother, to whom he later dedicated the book of poems The Mercy. Levine got his A.B. in 1950 and went to work for Chevrolet and Cadillac in what he calls "stupid jobs". He married his first wife Patty Kanterman in 1951. The marriage lasted until 1953. In 1953 he went to the University of Iowa without registering, studying among others with poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor". In 1954 he graduated with a mail-order masters degree with a thesis on John Keats' "Ode to Indolence", and married actress Frances J. Artley. He returned to the University of Iowa teaching technical writing, completing his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1957. The same year, he was awarded the Jones Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University. In 1958 he joined the English Department at California State University in Fresno, where he taught until his retirement in 1992. He has also taught at many other universities, among them New York University as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, at Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Tufts, and the University of California at Berkeley.
He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He is appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012.
Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit, the second of three sons and the first of identical twins of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Harry Levine owned a used auto parts business, his mother Esther Priscol (Prisckulnick) Levine was a bookseller. When Levine was five years old, his father died. Growing up, he faced the anti-Semitism embodied by the pro-Hitler radio priest Father Coughlin.
Levine started to work in car manufacturing plants at the age of 14. He graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1946 and went to college at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he began to write poetry, encouraged by his mother, to whom he later dedicated the book of poems The Mercy. Levine got his A.B. in 1950 and went to work for Chevrolet and Cadillac in what he calls "stupid jobs". He married his first wife Patty Kanterman in 1951. The marriage lasted until 1953. In 1953 he went to the University of Iowa without registering, studying among others with poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor". In 1954 he graduated with a mail-order masters degree with a thesis on John Keats' "Ode to Indolence", and married actress Frances J. Artley. He returned to the University of Iowa teaching technical writing, completing his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1957. The same year, he was awarded the Jones Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University. In 1958 he joined the English Department at California State University in Fresno, where he taught until his retirement in 1992. He has also taught at many other universities, among them New York University as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, at Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Tufts, and the University of California at Berkeley.
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September 7, 2023
Phillip Levine's Simple Truth
Philip Levine writes in the title poem of this collection:
"Some things/you know all your life. They are so simple and true/they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,/they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,/the glass of water, the absence of light gathering/ in the shadows of picture frames, they must be/ naked and alone, they must stand for themselves."
These lines capture many of the themes of this Pulitzer-prize winning book. The poems in this collection are deceptively simple, "naked and alone". They generally involve an incident or person, recollected by the poet from his past. The incident is recounted in bare unrhymed lines, without hyperbole or judgment. We are encouraged to see the incident, as we see the still life reproduced on the cover of the volume and to let it "stand for itself". The poems are elegiac in tone and the effect of the memory is generally one of deep sadness.
Many of the poems have a deliberately pictorial quality, as reflected in their titles, that remind one of a photo or of a painting in a museum. In many cases, the reader is tempted to conceive in the mind's eye a painting to accompany the poem. This is true, particularly, as the book progresses into its final section with its descriptions of the poet's mother ("My Mother with Purse, the Summer they Murdered the Spanish Poet"), father ("My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years before the Nazis could Break his Heart"), and others ("Edward Lieberman, Entrepreneur, four years after the Burnings on Okinawa") One of the poems of the collection is title simply "Photography". Ironically, this poem is less pictorial than many others. It relates a sad incident from the poet's childhood involving his Aunt, and others, and focuses on the ravages of time and memory.
The poems also focus on the role imagination plays in constituting our reality. The first poem of the collection "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" relates a meeting between these two romantic 20th Century poets and alludes to Crane's apparent suicide in jumping from a ship bound from Vera Cruz to New York. Crane's tragic but romantic death is juxtaposed with the vision coming "to an ordinary man staring/ at a filthy river" as he contemplates not only Crane and Lorca but his son falling to his death "from/the roof of a building he works on." With a voice of irony, the poet asks us to "bless the imagination. It gives/ us the myths we live by. Let's bless/ the visionary power of the human-- the only animal that's got it--"
These poems have a multi-layered simplicity realized through an understated voice of sadness and illuminated by imagination.
Robin Friedman
Philip Levine writes in the title poem of this collection:
"Some things/you know all your life. They are so simple and true/they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,/they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,/the glass of water, the absence of light gathering/ in the shadows of picture frames, they must be/ naked and alone, they must stand for themselves."
These lines capture many of the themes of this Pulitzer-prize winning book. The poems in this collection are deceptively simple, "naked and alone". They generally involve an incident or person, recollected by the poet from his past. The incident is recounted in bare unrhymed lines, without hyperbole or judgment. We are encouraged to see the incident, as we see the still life reproduced on the cover of the volume and to let it "stand for itself". The poems are elegiac in tone and the effect of the memory is generally one of deep sadness.
Many of the poems have a deliberately pictorial quality, as reflected in their titles, that remind one of a photo or of a painting in a museum. In many cases, the reader is tempted to conceive in the mind's eye a painting to accompany the poem. This is true, particularly, as the book progresses into its final section with its descriptions of the poet's mother ("My Mother with Purse, the Summer they Murdered the Spanish Poet"), father ("My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years before the Nazis could Break his Heart"), and others ("Edward Lieberman, Entrepreneur, four years after the Burnings on Okinawa") One of the poems of the collection is title simply "Photography". Ironically, this poem is less pictorial than many others. It relates a sad incident from the poet's childhood involving his Aunt, and others, and focuses on the ravages of time and memory.
The poems also focus on the role imagination plays in constituting our reality. The first poem of the collection "On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane" relates a meeting between these two romantic 20th Century poets and alludes to Crane's apparent suicide in jumping from a ship bound from Vera Cruz to New York. Crane's tragic but romantic death is juxtaposed with the vision coming "to an ordinary man staring/ at a filthy river" as he contemplates not only Crane and Lorca but his son falling to his death "from/the roof of a building he works on." With a voice of irony, the poet asks us to "bless the imagination. It gives/ us the myths we live by. Let's bless/ the visionary power of the human-- the only animal that's got it--"
These poems have a multi-layered simplicity realized through an understated voice of sadness and illuminated by imagination.
Robin Friedman
February 6, 2017
3.5
I honestly enjoyed this collection. Levine's writing is very simple. You can feel the calmness in each line, idk if you get what i mean! These poems are very quiet 'n lovely.
“Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker-”
I'm definitely looking forward to read more of his work.
I honestly enjoyed this collection. Levine's writing is very simple. You can feel the calmness in each line, idk if you get what i mean! These poems are very quiet 'n lovely.
“Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker-”
I'm definitely looking forward to read more of his work.
December 5, 2015
The one poet I would take to a desert island. Deceptively simple and straight-forward. The voice of America from the jobs and small houses of second generation immigrants establishing a place in industrial might of our mid-Century. A voice of grey smoke and dirty rivers and people getting up in the morning in the dark.
January 3, 2014
Brilliant, engaging, human and personal. Levine is one of the greats.
Ask for Nothing
Instead walk alone in the evening
heading out of town toward the fields
asleep under a darkening sky;
the dust risen from your steps transforms
itself into a golden rain fallen
earthward as a gift from no known god.
The plane trees along the canal bank
the few valley poplars, hold their breath
as you cross the wooden bridge that leads
nowhere you haven't been, for this walk
repeats itself once or more a day.
That is why in the distance you see
beyond the first ridge of low hills
where nothing ever grows, men and women
astride mules, on horseback, some even
on foot, all the lost family you
never prayed to see, praying to see you,
chanting and singing to bring the moon
down into the last of the sunlight.
Behind you the windows of the town
blink on and off, the houses close down;
ahead the voices fade like music
over deep water, and then are gone;
even the sudden, tumbling finches
have fled into smoke, and the one road
whitened in moonlight leads everywhere.
Ask for Nothing
Instead walk alone in the evening
heading out of town toward the fields
asleep under a darkening sky;
the dust risen from your steps transforms
itself into a golden rain fallen
earthward as a gift from no known god.
The plane trees along the canal bank
the few valley poplars, hold their breath
as you cross the wooden bridge that leads
nowhere you haven't been, for this walk
repeats itself once or more a day.
That is why in the distance you see
beyond the first ridge of low hills
where nothing ever grows, men and women
astride mules, on horseback, some even
on foot, all the lost family you
never prayed to see, praying to see you,
chanting and singing to bring the moon
down into the last of the sunlight.
Behind you the windows of the town
blink on and off, the houses close down;
ahead the voices fade like music
over deep water, and then are gone;
even the sudden, tumbling finches
have fled into smoke, and the one road
whitened in moonlight leads everywhere.
February 25, 2023
Levine’s poetry is hauntingly lovely, leaving me heartbroken. I am left with images of prayer, especially in the first poems—various times and places of kneeling to gain perspective and understanding. Levine focuses on people and the normal details of their lives that belie just how unique our lives are, how fleeting and how tragic at times.
I will return to this poetry.
I will return to this poetry.
January 21, 2014
Ask for Nothing
Instead walk alone in the evening
heading out of town toward the fields
asleep under a darkening sky;
the dust risen from your steps transforms
itself into a golden rain fallen
earthward as a gift from no known god.
The plane trees along the canal bank
the few valley poplars, hold their breath
as you cross the wooden bridge that leads
nowhere you haven't been, for this walk
repeats itself once or more a day.
That is why in the distance you see
beyond the first ridge of low hills
where nothing ever grows, men and women
astride mules, on horseback, some even
on foot, all the lost family you
never prayed to see, praying to see you,
chanting and singing to bring the moon
down into the last of the sunlight.
Behind you the windows of the town
blink on and off, the houses close down;
ahead the voices fade like music
over deep water, and then are gone;
even the sudden, tumbling finches
have fled into smoke, and the one road
whitened in moonlight leads everywhere.
Instead walk alone in the evening
heading out of town toward the fields
asleep under a darkening sky;
the dust risen from your steps transforms
itself into a golden rain fallen
earthward as a gift from no known god.
The plane trees along the canal bank
the few valley poplars, hold their breath
as you cross the wooden bridge that leads
nowhere you haven't been, for this walk
repeats itself once or more a day.
That is why in the distance you see
beyond the first ridge of low hills
where nothing ever grows, men and women
astride mules, on horseback, some even
on foot, all the lost family you
never prayed to see, praying to see you,
chanting and singing to bring the moon
down into the last of the sunlight.
Behind you the windows of the town
blink on and off, the houses close down;
ahead the voices fade like music
over deep water, and then are gone;
even the sudden, tumbling finches
have fled into smoke, and the one road
whitened in moonlight leads everywhere.
November 18, 2020
Sometimes you just need a good poem to drop you into a different place in a different time. Phillip Levine’s prize winning poetry does that well.
June 18, 2022
"Can the long white root a man in time becomes
talk back to one who chose to stay on the far shore
of his departure?"
Intense, personal, ubiquitous.
Damn near perfect.
~ Don Wentworth
talk back to one who chose to stay on the far shore
of his departure?"
Intense, personal, ubiquitous.
Damn near perfect.
~ Don Wentworth
July 5, 2015
I'm not sure what prompted me to finally get a volume of Philip Levine's poetry. Perhaps I'd heard of his passing earlier this year. I've been curious about his poetry ever since first reading "You Can Have It" (available here http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/...) in an anthology many years ago. I've enjoyed other poems of his I've run across over the years. I chose The Simple Truth because it won him a Pulitzer so I thought it might represent some of his best work. However, I doubt that's the case. My response to it was lukewarm, and while it may just be I'm not into Levine and much as I'd hoped, I'm going to give him another chance before letting him go.
The Simple Truth is a book of places and people, most especially family. In the midst of the book, I found myself wondering if I had ever read the work of a male poet who was so deeply connected to family. Family suffuses his work. There is also grief, not only of those who have died but for the circumstances of those who live. Much of it is deeply sympathetic work. He sees into lives and renders them. However, he is most often looking back through his childhood eyes at people back then. There's a feeling of him being arrested in that time. Nostalgia, yes, but also a hint of stagnation or stuckness. He would have been in his 60s when he wrote most of these poems, so that boyhood was a long way off. Still, his most intense, memorable poems come from is childhood and young adulthood.
Levine's poems often present a solid column of text on the page. They often draw a portrait or vignette. They're very rooted in a time and place. One of the poems from this volume that's on the Poetry Foundation's site is Tristan (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...), which is an example of a portrait.
Here's an excerpt from another poem I enjoyed, "Getting There," in which a father and son (presumably Levine and his son) find themselves stranded due to car failure and are taken in by an old farmer.
[...] Handed up, my boy sat
grimly on the tractor seat holding fast
to the steering wheel as though the world
in its turing might buch him off,
his face fixed and serious. The old man
returend from teh barn leading a goat
on a rope, a white goat named ahab
as though he'd gotten the story wrong.
Teddy stared out over the acres of wheat,
stretching all the way to those mountains
we had yet to cross, stared, and would not
begin to smile or come down to earth,
while the great day went on. [...]
And here's an example of a more lyrical poem, spurred by an encounter with a homeless man. This is from midway in "The Poem of Chalk."
[...] He knew feldspar,
he knew calcium, oyster shells, he
knew what creatures had given
their spines to become the dust time
pressed into these perfect cones,
he knew the sadness of classrooms
in December when the light falls
early and the words on the blackboard
abandon their grammar and sense
and then even their shapes so that
each letter points in every direction
at once and means nothing at all.
My plan is to try Levine's What Work Is, which won the National Book Award, before coming to a verdict about whether I'm a fan or not. There was nothing wrong with the poetry in this volume, it just didn't move me.
The Simple Truth is a book of places and people, most especially family. In the midst of the book, I found myself wondering if I had ever read the work of a male poet who was so deeply connected to family. Family suffuses his work. There is also grief, not only of those who have died but for the circumstances of those who live. Much of it is deeply sympathetic work. He sees into lives and renders them. However, he is most often looking back through his childhood eyes at people back then. There's a feeling of him being arrested in that time. Nostalgia, yes, but also a hint of stagnation or stuckness. He would have been in his 60s when he wrote most of these poems, so that boyhood was a long way off. Still, his most intense, memorable poems come from is childhood and young adulthood.
Levine's poems often present a solid column of text on the page. They often draw a portrait or vignette. They're very rooted in a time and place. One of the poems from this volume that's on the Poetry Foundation's site is Tristan (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetr...), which is an example of a portrait.
Here's an excerpt from another poem I enjoyed, "Getting There," in which a father and son (presumably Levine and his son) find themselves stranded due to car failure and are taken in by an old farmer.
[...] Handed up, my boy sat
grimly on the tractor seat holding fast
to the steering wheel as though the world
in its turing might buch him off,
his face fixed and serious. The old man
returend from teh barn leading a goat
on a rope, a white goat named ahab
as though he'd gotten the story wrong.
Teddy stared out over the acres of wheat,
stretching all the way to those mountains
we had yet to cross, stared, and would not
begin to smile or come down to earth,
while the great day went on. [...]
And here's an example of a more lyrical poem, spurred by an encounter with a homeless man. This is from midway in "The Poem of Chalk."
[...] He knew feldspar,
he knew calcium, oyster shells, he
knew what creatures had given
their spines to become the dust time
pressed into these perfect cones,
he knew the sadness of classrooms
in December when the light falls
early and the words on the blackboard
abandon their grammar and sense
and then even their shapes so that
each letter points in every direction
at once and means nothing at all.
My plan is to try Levine's What Work Is, which won the National Book Award, before coming to a verdict about whether I'm a fan or not. There was nothing wrong with the poetry in this volume, it just didn't move me.
June 3, 2013
This 1995 Pulitzer Prize-winning volume by the great American poet Philip Levine deserves its heady accolades. Harold Bloom wrote at the time of its release: "I wonder if any American poet since Walt Whitman himself has written elegies this consistently magnificent. The controlled pathos of every poem in the volume is immense, and gives me a new sense of Levine." Plain and exalted, the experience of reading this collection is as rich as reading a great novel. Some highlights:
from "The Poem of Chalk:
On the way to lower Broadway
this morning I faced a tall man
speaking to a piece of chalk
held in his right hand. The left
was open, and it kept the beat,
for his speech had a rhythm,
was a chant or dance, perhaps
even a poem in French, for he
was from Senegal and spoke French...
He had the bearing
of a king of lower Broadway, someone
out of the mind of Shakespeare or
Garcia Lorca, someone for whom loss
has sweetened into charity.
from "The Simple Truth"
I bought a dollar and half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt...
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water...
from "The Old Testament"
My twin brother swears that at age thirteen
I'd take on anyone who called me kike
no matter how old or big he was.
I only wish I'd been that tiny kid
who fought back through his tears, swearing
he would not go quietly.
He insists, he names the drugstore where I poured
a milkshake over the head of an Episcopalian
with quick fists as tight as croquet balls.
Sorrow mixed with humor: the simple truth. All hail, Levine!
from "The Poem of Chalk:
On the way to lower Broadway
this morning I faced a tall man
speaking to a piece of chalk
held in his right hand. The left
was open, and it kept the beat,
for his speech had a rhythm,
was a chant or dance, perhaps
even a poem in French, for he
was from Senegal and spoke French...
He had the bearing
of a king of lower Broadway, someone
out of the mind of Shakespeare or
Garcia Lorca, someone for whom loss
has sweetened into charity.
from "The Simple Truth"
I bought a dollar and half's worth of small red potatoes,
took them home, boiled them in their jackets
and ate them for dinner with a little butter and salt...
Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water...
from "The Old Testament"
My twin brother swears that at age thirteen
I'd take on anyone who called me kike
no matter how old or big he was.
I only wish I'd been that tiny kid
who fought back through his tears, swearing
he would not go quietly.
He insists, he names the drugstore where I poured
a milkshake over the head of an Episcopalian
with quick fists as tight as croquet balls.
Sorrow mixed with humor: the simple truth. All hail, Levine!
September 1, 2021
I was most moved by how coherent a voice he had from poem to poem, talking about the scenes from his life and rarely going too far into the ruminative and then in the back half of Dust and Memory, almost at the end of the 2nd section, he breaks this out:
"What is this about?
Wherever you are now, there is earth
somewhere beneath you waiting to take
the little you leave. This morning I rose
before dawn, dressed in the cold, washed
my face, ran a comb through my hair
and felt my skull underneath, unrelenting,
soon the home of nothing. The wind
that swirled the sand that day years ago
had a name that will outlast mine
by a thousand years, though made of air,
which is what I too shall become, hope-
fully, air that says quietly in your ear,
“I’m dust and memory, your two neighbors
on this cold star.” That wind, the Levante,
will howl through the sockets of my skull
to make a peculiar music. When you hear it,
remember it’s me, singing, gone but here,
warm still in the fire of your care."
"What is this about?
Wherever you are now, there is earth
somewhere beneath you waiting to take
the little you leave. This morning I rose
before dawn, dressed in the cold, washed
my face, ran a comb through my hair
and felt my skull underneath, unrelenting,
soon the home of nothing. The wind
that swirled the sand that day years ago
had a name that will outlast mine
by a thousand years, though made of air,
which is what I too shall become, hope-
fully, air that says quietly in your ear,
“I’m dust and memory, your two neighbors
on this cold star.” That wind, the Levante,
will howl through the sockets of my skull
to make a peculiar music. When you hear it,
remember it’s me, singing, gone but here,
warm still in the fire of your care."
December 9, 2007
"It is onions or potatoes, a pinch
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong,
it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,
made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,
in a form we have no words for, and you live on it."
of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,
it stays in the back of your throat like a truth
you never uttered because the time was always wrong,
it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,
made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,
in a form we have no words for, and you live on it."
July 16, 2013
Bought this on a whim because I saw Cameron McGill post about it. Needed something to read, and he spoke so fondly of it. Can't deny I was curious, though it appears superficial, that it won the '95 Pulitzer Prize.
At first, I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it. But the more I got accustomed to Levine's style, the more I fell in love. Absolutely feeling inspired thanks to this collection.
At first, I wasn't sure if I was enjoying it. But the more I got accustomed to Levine's style, the more I fell in love. Absolutely feeling inspired thanks to this collection.
February 1, 2019
This guy came to me by way of Joseph Millar recommendation. It's obvious that Levine has been a strong influence on Millar (and others, I would assume): long lines, narrative poems, descriptions of work, occasional references to the Spanish Civil War... Among the many, many collections that Levine published, I grabbed this one because it won the Pulitzer. It’s almost immediately apparent that this is a book of recollection, a book of remembering, rather than an “urgent” book—Levine was almost 70 when it was published. So he is reflecting on his younger years, how one of his memories happened at the same time as a large world event (Lorca’s murder, Hitler’s ascension), how one event ended up being significant in the larger scope of his life. I like a lot of these poems, but it sometimes feels like I’m listening to my grandpa: I know it’s important, but I also kind of want to know what he thinks about what’s going on these days. Maybe this feeling could have been avoided by reading the collection more slowly, and I definitely do feel like I will revisit some of these poems in the future.
Something that did rub me the wrong way is that these are very self-focused poems. Someone like Joe Millar, for example, writes poetry in the same vein but also brings in other characters. It’s apparent that family is very important, it’s apparent that people have had a big impact on him. With Levine, in this book at least, he is at the front and center and end. His wife is only a passing reference, as are children. Figures from his family enter the picture but hardly appear more than once. If this is autobiography, it’s very obvious who was number one in Levine’s book. Like I said though, maybe this is only the case in the one poetry collection.
Something that did rub me the wrong way is that these are very self-focused poems. Someone like Joe Millar, for example, writes poetry in the same vein but also brings in other characters. It’s apparent that family is very important, it’s apparent that people have had a big impact on him. With Levine, in this book at least, he is at the front and center and end. His wife is only a passing reference, as are children. Figures from his family enter the picture but hardly appear more than once. If this is autobiography, it’s very obvious who was number one in Levine’s book. Like I said though, maybe this is only the case in the one poetry collection.
December 8, 2021
I find it most productive to discuss poetry using a baseball metaphor, using bases reached as a way to express the amount of wow power a particular piece has. For example, most poetry fails to make it to first. Less than 1% of all poetry is a home run, must master of the genre can improve that stat just like a Babe Ruth or a Hank Aaron could produce more grand slams than the ordinary ball player. To speak of poetry seems silly to me unless you're speaking to another technical expert who can follow a nerdy discussion on how certain poets achieve certain acoustic effects . . . In this collection, 75% of the offered works make it to third base or better, which is incredible considering that even most of the collections given a Pulitzer or National Book Award are full of half-hearted first base bunts. Admittedly, I prefer poems that supply a bit of character analysis and story, and Levine consistently does this in this collection, which seems like it is mostly situated in the New Narrative school Also, I prefer poets like Charles Bukowski who channel a working class aesthetic, and Levine, with his background of a factory worker, consistently does this as well. I don't think Levine could insert a multi-syllabic Latinate term that required consulting a dictionary into his lines if his live depended upon doing so.
June 6, 2017
By the time I realised it isn't for me, I was already halfway through the book, so I took it as an argument that it isn't really as boring and dry as I think.
Continued reading it, and I found myself falling in love with the style. These poems are in the form of lyrical elegies that feel easy on the tongue; and Mr Levine expertly describes things with such detailed imagery that the scenarios he paints become as vivid as reality. He successfully brings, through narrative, the simple truth that we all overlook.
"Somethings you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme, they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker, the glass of water, the absence of light gathering in the shadows of picture frames, they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves"
~The Simple Truth
Over time, you become acquainted with the style that is simple yet so meaningful and gorgeously knit.
Philip Levine has always been known as a voice of the working-class, which he himself was a part of, in his time in Detroit. This collection of poetry called 'The Simple Truth' is dedicated specifically to the subject of labour. He won a Pulitzer for this one. (1995)
Continued reading it, and I found myself falling in love with the style. These poems are in the form of lyrical elegies that feel easy on the tongue; and Mr Levine expertly describes things with such detailed imagery that the scenarios he paints become as vivid as reality. He successfully brings, through narrative, the simple truth that we all overlook.
"Somethings you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme, they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker, the glass of water, the absence of light gathering in the shadows of picture frames, they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves"
~The Simple Truth
Over time, you become acquainted with the style that is simple yet so meaningful and gorgeously knit.
Philip Levine has always been known as a voice of the working-class, which he himself was a part of, in his time in Detroit. This collection of poetry called 'The Simple Truth' is dedicated specifically to the subject of labour. He won a Pulitzer for this one. (1995)
October 4, 2021
Favorites:
On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane
One Day
The Simple Truth
My Sister's Voice
Quotes:
"...addressing me as Mr. Levine,
the name my father bore, a name
a man could take with courage
and pride into the empire of death"
"What life
were we expecting? Ships sailed
from distant harbors without us,
the telephone rang and no one answered,
someone came home alone and stood
for hours in the dark hallway.
A woman bowed to a candle
and spoke as though it could hear,
as though it could answer.
My aunt went to the back window
and called her small son, gone now
27 years into the closed wards
of the state, called his name again
and again. What could I do?
Answer for him who'd forgotten
his name? Take my father's shoes
and go into the streets?"
"That night beside the great river
I dressed in the dark and alone
left my family and walked till dawn
came, freezing, on the eastern rim
of mountains. I found no answer,
or learned never to ask, for
the wind answers itself if you
wait long enough. It turns one way,
then another, the trees bend, they
rise, the long grasses wave and bow,
all the voices you've ever heard
you hear again until you know
you've heard nothing."
On the Meeting of Garcia Lorca and Hart Crane
One Day
The Simple Truth
My Sister's Voice
Quotes:
"...addressing me as Mr. Levine,
the name my father bore, a name
a man could take with courage
and pride into the empire of death"
"What life
were we expecting? Ships sailed
from distant harbors without us,
the telephone rang and no one answered,
someone came home alone and stood
for hours in the dark hallway.
A woman bowed to a candle
and spoke as though it could hear,
as though it could answer.
My aunt went to the back window
and called her small son, gone now
27 years into the closed wards
of the state, called his name again
and again. What could I do?
Answer for him who'd forgotten
his name? Take my father's shoes
and go into the streets?"
"That night beside the great river
I dressed in the dark and alone
left my family and walked till dawn
came, freezing, on the eastern rim
of mountains. I found no answer,
or learned never to ask, for
the wind answers itself if you
wait long enough. It turns one way,
then another, the trees bend, they
rise, the long grasses wave and bow,
all the voices you've ever heard
you hear again until you know
you've heard nothing."
August 2, 2020
Day one of the "SealeyChallenge" and I already have to edit. So I went to read Mary Oliver and then I opened the book to find I had already read it. So I read it again and added Philip Levine. Starting with some Pulitzer winners from 1995 and 2005. Both lovely.
From Philip Levine's "Dust and Memory": ...
"The wind
that swirled the sand that day years ago
had a name that will outlast mine
by a thousand years, though made of air,
which is what I too shall become, hope-
fully..."
I loved "Dust and Memory," "The Escape," and "The Simple Truth"--the ending of the second section blew me away.
And then the very last poem, "My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years before the Nazis Could Break His Heart," was brilliant--both in its cognitive depth and its shimmering beauty.
From Philip Levine's "Dust and Memory": ...
"The wind
that swirled the sand that day years ago
had a name that will outlast mine
by a thousand years, though made of air,
which is what I too shall become, hope-
fully..."
I loved "Dust and Memory," "The Escape," and "The Simple Truth"--the ending of the second section blew me away.
And then the very last poem, "My Father with Cigarette Twelve Years before the Nazis Could Break His Heart," was brilliant--both in its cognitive depth and its shimmering beauty.
September 15, 2019
Envidio a los que disfrutan plenamente la poesía en un idioma distinto al suyo, a mí es que sólo me golpea el español, y uno lee poesía es para recibir una golpiza, ¿o no?
Más allá de eso, prácticamente lo que hace Levine es contar anécdotas, pero lo hace de una manera tan vívida que uno no alcanza distinguir qué vivió el tipo y qué se está inventando, y sospecho que de haber sido el inglés mi lengua materna algunos poemas se me hubieran quedado no como relatos ajenos sino como recuerdos propios.
Más allá de eso, prácticamente lo que hace Levine es contar anécdotas, pero lo hace de una manera tan vívida que uno no alcanza distinguir qué vivió el tipo y qué se está inventando, y sospecho que de haber sido el inglés mi lengua materna algunos poemas se me hubieran quedado no como relatos ajenos sino como recuerdos propios.
April 29, 2024
"Some things
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves."
I've read a lot of great poetry over the past 18 months, but this collection is the first one that has kept consistently awestruck since Louise Gluck's The Wild Iris. I could not recommend this one more highly.
you know all your life. They are so simple and true
they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme,
they must be laid on the table beside the salt shaker,
the glass of water, the absence of light gathering
in the shadows of picture frames, they must be
naked and alone, they must stand for themselves."
I've read a lot of great poetry over the past 18 months, but this collection is the first one that has kept consistently awestruck since Louise Gluck's The Wild Iris. I could not recommend this one more highly.
October 17, 2018
This is the first book of poetry I ever fell in love with. A friend on my year abroad in college had brought it with her to Ecuador, and I borrowed it repeatedly, and ordered a copy the minute I got home (it was also probably the first book I ever ordered through a local bookstore and paid full MSRP for). It’s still magic to me. “Ask for nothing” remains probably my favorite poem in the world.
April 4, 2020
Could have been 5 stars. Maybe I'll change it to 5 when come back to these poems. They kind of smack you in the face--start out nice and simple and then wham. I don't want to read them all, one after the other; they demand thought, consideration, distance. Find Levine reading the title poem on the web. Hearing him read it is quite an experience.
December 2, 2018
A lovely little volume. Some of the images and rhythms are truly astounding. I think my favorite is “No Buyers,” especially the line “perhaps it’s light in tiny diamonds meant to consecrate the day or dirty it.” I also really liked “Magpiety.”
September 13, 2019
Algunos poemas se quedan conmigo para siempre, en especial el que da título al libro.
Otros no los entendí, ni diccionario en mano, y ando todavía buscando análisis en internet para ver si alguien me explica.
Otros no los entendí, ni diccionario en mano, y ando todavía buscando análisis en internet para ver si alguien me explica.
February 10, 2020
Really simple writing style with incredibly profound thoughts. These are more than just poems - they are personal stories that are compressed and presented almost like dreams or prayers at times. Even if you think you don't like poetry, you might enjoy this collection.
August 28, 2020
The collection of narrative, conversational poems won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995. Highly accessible collection with some lovely individual lines. My favorite poems include "The Simple Truth" and "My Mother with Purse..." How ambitious is the collection is something for each reader to decide.
February 7, 2021
Levine writes poems in a plain, prosy style. He was a working class guy who wrote poems about working class, American lives.
His writing never wows you with his style, but I found some of these poems quite moving, particularly those about family members.
His writing never wows you with his style, but I found some of these poems quite moving, particularly those about family members.
June 11, 2021
5 stars. Consistently excellent writing. As with any writer, some of the same tricks dressed up differently throughout this collection, but with that in mind, still a collection of heart-wrenching, expertly crafted poems packed with pathos and concision.
January 11, 2023
Hmmm. I don't think this book, which one the Pulitzer for poetry, has anywhere near the strong number of poems that one can find in Levine's other book, What Work Is. The title poem, "The Simple Truth", is well done...but the rest are fairly pedestrian.
June 13, 2023
Levine’s way of words moved me. He’s got a special voice that seems simply conversational but yet so heartwarming. I’ve felt like my heart kept forming a new layer, poem after poem. I’ll have to (and I definitely want to) read more stuff from him.
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