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The Poet in the World
Using the medium of prose, the contemporary poet expresses her thoughts on the poet's craft and other writers
275 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1973
10 people are currently reading
218 people want to read
About the author
Denise Levertov
198 books170 followersAmerican poet Denise Levertov was born in Ilford, Essex, England. Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, was Welsh. Her father, Paul Levertoff, from Germany migrated to England as a Russian Hassidic Jew, who, after converting to Christianity, became an Anglican parson. At the age of 12, she sent some of her poems to T. S. Eliot, who replied with a two-page letter of encouragement. In 1940, when she was 17, Levertov published her first poem.
During the Blitz, Levertov served in London as a civilian nurse. Her first book, The Double Image, was published six years later. In 1947 she married American writer Mitchell Goodman and moved with him to the United States in the following year. Although Levertov and Goodman would eventually divorce, they had a son, Nickolai, and lived mainly in New York City, summering in Maine. In 1955, she became a naturalized American citizen.
During the 1960s and 70s, Levertov became much more politically active in her life and work. As poetry editor for The Nation, she was able to support and publish the work of feminist and other leftist activist poets. The Vietnam War was an especially important focus of her poetry, which often tried to weave together the personal and political, as in her poem "The Sorrow Dance," which speaks of her sister's death. Also in response to the Vietnam War, Levertov joined the War Resister’s League.
Much of the latter part of Levertov’s life was spent in education. After moving to Massachusetts, Levertov taught at Brandeis University, MIT and Tufts University. On the West Coast, she had a part-time teaching stint at the University of Washington and for 11 years (1982-1993) held a full professorship at Stanford University. In 1984 she received a Litt. D. from Bates College. After retiring from teaching, she traveled for a year doing poetry readings in the U.S. and England.
In 1997, Denise Levertov died at the age of 74 from complications due to lymphoma. She was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.
Levertov wrote and published 20 books of poetry, criticism, translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honors, she received the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lannan Award, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
During the Blitz, Levertov served in London as a civilian nurse. Her first book, The Double Image, was published six years later. In 1947 she married American writer Mitchell Goodman and moved with him to the United States in the following year. Although Levertov and Goodman would eventually divorce, they had a son, Nickolai, and lived mainly in New York City, summering in Maine. In 1955, she became a naturalized American citizen.
During the 1960s and 70s, Levertov became much more politically active in her life and work. As poetry editor for The Nation, she was able to support and publish the work of feminist and other leftist activist poets. The Vietnam War was an especially important focus of her poetry, which often tried to weave together the personal and political, as in her poem "The Sorrow Dance," which speaks of her sister's death. Also in response to the Vietnam War, Levertov joined the War Resister’s League.
Much of the latter part of Levertov’s life was spent in education. After moving to Massachusetts, Levertov taught at Brandeis University, MIT and Tufts University. On the West Coast, she had a part-time teaching stint at the University of Washington and for 11 years (1982-1993) held a full professorship at Stanford University. In 1984 she received a Litt. D. from Bates College. After retiring from teaching, she traveled for a year doing poetry readings in the U.S. and England.
In 1997, Denise Levertov died at the age of 74 from complications due to lymphoma. She was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, Washington.
Levertov wrote and published 20 books of poetry, criticism, translations. She also edited several anthologies. Among her many awards and honors, she received the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize, the Lannan Award, a grant from the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 25, 2008
This book provided me lessons that stimulated and informed my approach to writing poems. The nugget of my education was discovered and studied in her section titled "Some Notes on Organic Form"
February 8, 2019
best book I’ve read so far this year. Does exactly what it says on the tin. Her writing on the process and content of poetry was highly illuminating, and her teaching experiences were interesting.
May 12, 2016
A feeling flashes.
Thunders.
Images,
words,
shower down.
If you are a poet,
you don't mind
the downpour.
You dip your quill, still
blinded by fleeting vision,
secluded thunder.
That's one way
to write.
Another?
Brick by brick:
"Where
do I break
this line?
Oh,
damn!
Where did that idea
go?!"
These,
the passions of her process,
the poet lays out
in this work.
Neither Vedic poetics
(see Harold Coward's Bhartrhari
and Jan Gonda's Vision of the Vedic Poets)
nor haiku poetics
(see, for instance, The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg)
nor Chinese poetics (see Steven Owen's Readings in Chinese Literary Thought),
but the poetics of one woman writing
in the United States
in the late 1950s
and early 1960s.
Nevertheless,
highly recommended.
Thunders.
Images,
words,
shower down.
If you are a poet,
you don't mind
the downpour.
You dip your quill, still
blinded by fleeting vision,
secluded thunder.
That's one way
to write.
Another?
Brick by brick:
"Where
do I break
this line?
Oh,
damn!
Where did that idea
go?!"
These,
the passions of her process,
the poet lays out
in this work.
Neither Vedic poetics
(see Harold Coward's Bhartrhari
and Jan Gonda's Vision of the Vedic Poets)
nor haiku poetics
(see, for instance, The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg)
nor Chinese poetics (see Steven Owen's Readings in Chinese Literary Thought),
but the poetics of one woman writing
in the United States
in the late 1950s
and early 1960s.
Nevertheless,
highly recommended.
November 9, 2009
Not being much for labels, I’ve never thought about exactly what kind of poetry I write. We all throw around terms like free verse, narrative, lyric, sticchic, strophic, among others, but for all practical purposes those terms are relative to the people you’re having a conversation with and not much else. Denise Levertov’s book, The Poet in the World, gave me pause and caused me to reflect on the work I’m actually doing. According to her, the type of poems I write could only be called “organic” because free verse implies no structure or association.
The best way I can describe what I think she’s talking about is through jazz. In the late 1940’s and through the decade of the 1950’s, musicians like Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane played a type of jazz referred to as “bebop.” What that meant, in simple terms, was taking a standard song with a definite melody and improvising “riffs” off of the melody, returning to it at their leisure and riffing again as the spirit moved them. This was organic jazz.
In the 1960’s, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Mingus, and others began experimenting with “free” jazz. This consisted of complete improvisation, no melody, form, or structure, just a series of grunts, groans, wails, and random moans. I could very easily liken this to what true free verse poetry should be in Levertov’s opinion. And, it is not what most of us write. I guess I’m a bebop poet. I write with a specific narrative in mind. I riff off of that narrative, but return to it. The structure and form changes with each poem based on content, but structure and form do exist.
Levertov’s essays throughout the book had me speculating like this on many different subjects. That makes me believe the book was well worth reading. I call it a book of essays, but that may be too rigid of a classification. It’s really a collection of speeches, journal notes, lectures and random thoughts. Each section, however, is valuable in understanding Levertov and her poetics. For example, in one entry she bemoans the state of poetry in the late 20th century. She says: "The best poems of recent years that are about chaos… including “Howl”are intricately structured, not chaotic. The force is there, the horror, but only precisely because these are works of art, not self-indulgent spittle drippings. They have the “inner harmony” that is a contrast to the confusion around them."
This idea is of particular interest to me because I have argued with high school English teachers for years that teaching students to write poetry as a form of expression is a cop- out. Poetry is a form of expression, but it’s also much more than that. Good poems are works of art and, like any work of art, subject to standards. What and whose standards are, of course, arguable, but that's not the point. This is - poems are not spittle drippings of teenaged angst.
According to Levertov, poets don’t look for answers. They seek to clarify the existence and nature of questions. The way they do this is through dialogue with their inner selves. If I believe Levertov, and I do, then the task of the poet is to strive for a universality of subject or theme within the poem, a way to reach others by reaching himself or herself. The circumstance that generates the poem becomes far less important than the communion between author and reader regarding the questions the circumstances raise.
The best way I can describe what I think she’s talking about is through jazz. In the late 1940’s and through the decade of the 1950’s, musicians like Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, and John Coltrane played a type of jazz referred to as “bebop.” What that meant, in simple terms, was taking a standard song with a definite melody and improvising “riffs” off of the melody, returning to it at their leisure and riffing again as the spirit moved them. This was organic jazz.
In the 1960’s, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Mingus, and others began experimenting with “free” jazz. This consisted of complete improvisation, no melody, form, or structure, just a series of grunts, groans, wails, and random moans. I could very easily liken this to what true free verse poetry should be in Levertov’s opinion. And, it is not what most of us write. I guess I’m a bebop poet. I write with a specific narrative in mind. I riff off of that narrative, but return to it. The structure and form changes with each poem based on content, but structure and form do exist.
Levertov’s essays throughout the book had me speculating like this on many different subjects. That makes me believe the book was well worth reading. I call it a book of essays, but that may be too rigid of a classification. It’s really a collection of speeches, journal notes, lectures and random thoughts. Each section, however, is valuable in understanding Levertov and her poetics. For example, in one entry she bemoans the state of poetry in the late 20th century. She says: "The best poems of recent years that are about chaos… including “Howl”are intricately structured, not chaotic. The force is there, the horror, but only precisely because these are works of art, not self-indulgent spittle drippings. They have the “inner harmony” that is a contrast to the confusion around them."
This idea is of particular interest to me because I have argued with high school English teachers for years that teaching students to write poetry as a form of expression is a cop- out. Poetry is a form of expression, but it’s also much more than that. Good poems are works of art and, like any work of art, subject to standards. What and whose standards are, of course, arguable, but that's not the point. This is - poems are not spittle drippings of teenaged angst.
According to Levertov, poets don’t look for answers. They seek to clarify the existence and nature of questions. The way they do this is through dialogue with their inner selves. If I believe Levertov, and I do, then the task of the poet is to strive for a universality of subject or theme within the poem, a way to reach others by reaching himself or herself. The circumstance that generates the poem becomes far less important than the communion between author and reader regarding the questions the circumstances raise.
February 4, 2022
Levertov’s erudition and depth of insight into her calling as a poet are as stunning as they are enlightening. The essay “Working and Dreaming” is a brilliant description of the creative process.
From “Origins of a Poem”:
“Reverence for life, if it is a necessary relationship to the world, must be for all people, not only for poets. Yes; but it is the poet who has language in his care; the poet who more than others recognizes language also as a form of life and a common resource to be cherished and served as we should serve and cherish earth and its waters, animal and vegetable life, and each other.” (p. 53)
From “The Sense of Pilgrimage”:
“Readers who are not themselves practicing poets often assume there is a hiatus between seeing and saying; but the poet does not see and then begin to search for words to say what [she] sees: [she] begins to see and at once begins to say or to sing, and only in the action of verbalization does [she] see further. His language is not more dependent on his vision than his vision is upon his language. This is surely one of the primary distinctions between poet and mystic.” (p. 73)
From “The Poet in the World”:
“When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.”
“‘No ideas but in things,’ said William Carlos Williams. This does not mean ‘no ideas.’ It means that ‘language [and here I quote Wordsworth] is not the dress but the incarnation of thoughts.’ ‘No ideas but in things,’ means, essentially, ‘Only connect.’ And it is therefore not only a craft-statement, not only an aesthetic statement (though it is these things also, and importantly), but a moral statement. Only connect. No ideas but in things. The words reverberate through the poet’s life, through my life, and I hope through your lives, joining with other knowledge in the mind, that place that is not a gray room full of little boxes. . . .’”
From “Origins of a Poem”:
“Reverence for life, if it is a necessary relationship to the world, must be for all people, not only for poets. Yes; but it is the poet who has language in his care; the poet who more than others recognizes language also as a form of life and a common resource to be cherished and served as we should serve and cherish earth and its waters, animal and vegetable life, and each other.” (p. 53)
From “The Sense of Pilgrimage”:
“Readers who are not themselves practicing poets often assume there is a hiatus between seeing and saying; but the poet does not see and then begin to search for words to say what [she] sees: [she] begins to see and at once begins to say or to sing, and only in the action of verbalization does [she] see further. His language is not more dependent on his vision than his vision is upon his language. This is surely one of the primary distinctions between poet and mystic.” (p. 73)
From “The Poet in the World”:
“When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.”
“‘No ideas but in things,’ said William Carlos Williams. This does not mean ‘no ideas.’ It means that ‘language [and here I quote Wordsworth] is not the dress but the incarnation of thoughts.’ ‘No ideas but in things,’ means, essentially, ‘Only connect.’ And it is therefore not only a craft-statement, not only an aesthetic statement (though it is these things also, and importantly), but a moral statement. Only connect. No ideas but in things. The words reverberate through the poet’s life, through my life, and I hope through your lives, joining with other knowledge in the mind, that place that is not a gray room full of little boxes. . . .’”
July 11, 2007
"Some Notes on Organic Form" has been hugely influential on me.
November 1, 2016
coming to the book i was only interested in reading about craft, so i mostly skimmed the political and critical essays. the material that touches on craft is just ok. only one or two things that sticks out in my mind as being insightful: that the primary labor of the creative enterprise is for the artist one of focus on what is given, and not of uncovering that given, and that "the obligation of the writer is: to take personal and active responsibility for his words, whatever they are, and to acknowledge their potential influence on the lives of others. The obligation of teachers and critics is: not to block the dynamic consequences of the words they try to bring close to students and readers. ...Of readers: not to indulge in the hypocrisy of merely vicarious experience, thereby reducing literature to the concept of "just words," ultimately a frivolity, an irrelevance when the chips are down... When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don't share the consequences" (114) most of which i'd contest but it's a pretty good place to start.
April 16, 2021
I went back and forth between liking it and disliking liking it. At times it was wordy, convoluted, and boring, at other times I was excited to keep reading. The excitement didn't come very often though. I didn't like any of the poetry she featured in the book, her own, or those of other poets. In one chapter she spoke of eliminating racism and being revolutionary but didn't include any African American poets in her book. I assume from lack of mention that she didn't include any in her workshops either. 3.5 was my overall rating. I did learn a few things and get inspired to write a poem once or twice.
July 20, 2023
"Some Notes on Organic Form" was a critical essay to an aspiring young poet, a non-formalist, a marginalized Japanese American who would not discover order in traditional forms. Levertov would direct me to the open field. It's difficult to say how sustaining volumes of poetry like The Sorrow Dance were for me. These essays were seminal to my thinking about poetry. Of the Black Mountain poets, Levertov matters to me most.
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December 12, 2023Didn't finish this book – for now. It's very technical, so it was challenging for me as a non-poet. While I really enjoyed Levertov's discussion of her process, and I think her lessons have wisdom applicable to any craft, I think I'll get more out of it if I read it at a different time in my life.
November 5, 2022
Lots of good stuff but half the time I wanted to be like “it’s not all that deep, Denise”
July 11, 2021
Denise Levertov, a mediados de 1973, hizo una selección de varios textos suyos en prosa para reunirlos en un hermoso libro. La publicación de The Poet in the world fue recibida por los lectores como un suceso comparable con la publicación de The Sacred Wood de T.S. Eliot y ABC of reading de Ezra Pound. Investigando vi que la primera traducción (?) en lengua española fue realizada por Ugo Ulive. El libro fue editado y publicado por Monte Ávila Editores en 1979. Ignoro si se realizó alguna otra edición posterior o anterior en español, tema que me desconcierta, pues se trata de un libro maravilloso y conmovedor, con un valor y fuerza imprescindibles cuyo título es casi de culto; uno de tantos títulos que tuvimos el lujo de tener en los anaqueles de nuestro país al módico precio (grabado en la contraportada) de 35 bolívares.
Para Denise la prosa en los poetas establece un estrecho vínculo entre la vida interior y exterior que sirve como un recurso más autorevelador que los mismos poemas. En la prosa se concentran los aspectos de la vida meditativa de quien escribe, mientras que los versos son la manifestación de los impulsos espirituales. Los grandes maestros logran en sus escritos enlazar ambos estados creativos, dándoles esa particularidad en la voz que resuena indefinida en la conciencia de una época. Denise Levertov es ese tipo de maestra cuyas palabras resuenan todavía en pequeños rincones de resistencia.
El poeta en el mundo está divido en cinco secciones temáticas donde la autora estableció sus intenciones acerca de la relación vital entre la poesía y su vida. En Trabajo e inspiración, primera sección del libro, reúne una serie de conferencias y reflexiones sobre la teoría poética. Las maneras de componer, bajo el presupuesto de lo que ella concibe como la forma orgánica, concepto que está detrás de todas las cosas, donde el poeta es aquel capaz de revelar aquello que está oculto. La forma orgánica consiste en un método de percepción basado en la intuición de cierto orden, una forma más allá de las formas, donde la poesía, como obra creativa, es una actividad exploratoria. A grandes rasgos, la condición del poeta está en un entrecruzamiento o constelación de experiencias que despiertan en él una necesidad, mejor dicho una exigencia mayor, que vendría a materializarse en el poema.
"El comienzo de la satisfacción de esta exigencia es contemplar, meditar, palabras que denotan un estado en el que el calor del sentimiento va caldeando el intelecto. Contemplar proviene de “templum, temple, lugar, espacio de observación indicado por el augur”. No significa simplemente observar, advertir, sino hacer estas cosas en presencia de un dios. Y meditar es “mantener la mente en estado de contemplación”; su sinónimo en inglés es “to muse“, que proviene de una palabra que significa “estar con la boca abierta”, algo que no es tan cómico si pensamos en “inspiración”: llevar aire a los pulmones. (pp. 18-19)
(Fragmento de una reseña que hice hace tiempo y que comparto por acá):
https://alexurrieta.wordpress.com/202...
Para Denise la prosa en los poetas establece un estrecho vínculo entre la vida interior y exterior que sirve como un recurso más autorevelador que los mismos poemas. En la prosa se concentran los aspectos de la vida meditativa de quien escribe, mientras que los versos son la manifestación de los impulsos espirituales. Los grandes maestros logran en sus escritos enlazar ambos estados creativos, dándoles esa particularidad en la voz que resuena indefinida en la conciencia de una época. Denise Levertov es ese tipo de maestra cuyas palabras resuenan todavía en pequeños rincones de resistencia.
El poeta en el mundo está divido en cinco secciones temáticas donde la autora estableció sus intenciones acerca de la relación vital entre la poesía y su vida. En Trabajo e inspiración, primera sección del libro, reúne una serie de conferencias y reflexiones sobre la teoría poética. Las maneras de componer, bajo el presupuesto de lo que ella concibe como la forma orgánica, concepto que está detrás de todas las cosas, donde el poeta es aquel capaz de revelar aquello que está oculto. La forma orgánica consiste en un método de percepción basado en la intuición de cierto orden, una forma más allá de las formas, donde la poesía, como obra creativa, es una actividad exploratoria. A grandes rasgos, la condición del poeta está en un entrecruzamiento o constelación de experiencias que despiertan en él una necesidad, mejor dicho una exigencia mayor, que vendría a materializarse en el poema.
"El comienzo de la satisfacción de esta exigencia es contemplar, meditar, palabras que denotan un estado en el que el calor del sentimiento va caldeando el intelecto. Contemplar proviene de “templum, temple, lugar, espacio de observación indicado por el augur”. No significa simplemente observar, advertir, sino hacer estas cosas en presencia de un dios. Y meditar es “mantener la mente en estado de contemplación”; su sinónimo en inglés es “to muse“, que proviene de una palabra que significa “estar con la boca abierta”, algo que no es tan cómico si pensamos en “inspiración”: llevar aire a los pulmones. (pp. 18-19)
(Fragmento de una reseña que hice hace tiempo y que comparto por acá):
https://alexurrieta.wordpress.com/202...
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January 25, 2016Read part of book...
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