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The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov
How splendid and impressive to have a complete, clear, and unobstructed view of Denise Levertov. Covering more than six decades and including, chronologically, every poem she ever published, Levertov’s Collected Poems presents her marvelous, groundbreaking work in full.
Born in England, Denise Levertov emigrated in 1948 to the United States, where she was acclaimed by Kenneth Rexroth in The New York Times as “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, the most modest, the most moving.” A staunch anti-war activist and environmentalist, and the winner of the Robert Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Lannan Prize, Denise Levertov inspired generations of writers. New Directions is proud to publish this landmark collected poems of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets.
Born in England, Denise Levertov emigrated in 1948 to the United States, where she was acclaimed by Kenneth Rexroth in The New York Times as “the most subtly skillful poet of her generation, the most profound, the most modest, the most moving.” A staunch anti-war activist and environmentalist, and the winner of the Robert Frost Medal, the Shelley Memorial Award, and the Lannan Prize, Denise Levertov inspired generations of writers. New Directions is proud to publish this landmark collected poems of one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets.
- GenresPoetry
1080 pages, Paperback
First published October 23, 2013
28 people are currently reading
375 people want to read
About the author
Denise Levertov
199 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 21, 2015
I did it! I finished this monster book! Reading 1000 pages of one poet feels like reading the most beautiful and terrible pieces of her diary. You can trace her ebbing and flowing spirituality, politics, sexuality-- all those identities and persuasions we drift between in life. I loved it. This book was a delight.
October 25, 2018
Denise Levertov, on her birthday October 24
A visionary poetry of ethereal, strange, impassioned glorias of nature and the Infinite, vivid and strange reimaginations of fairytales and myths (her poem An Embroidery about Rose Red will haunt my dreams forever), and of the values immanent in nature and of the struggle for meaning in a fallen world; Denise Levertov forged a dialectics of balance aligned with the Holism of Gregory Bateson in Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, and also with that of Tillie Olsen; a mythopoeic natural history which seeks to reveal the design of which it is an expression.
Complex and multilayered like the history she reflects, Denise Levertov remains the world's most important religious poet since Coleridge. She is also one of the most radical voices of the modern world, a pattern set in childhood when she went door to door with the Daily Worker and continued throughout a lifelong activism against war, inequality, and the authorized power of the state.
Raised in a home filled with reading, writing, and discussions about literature in Russian, Hebrew, English, and German and hailed as a child prodigy by the great T.S. Eliot, Denise Levertov became a figure of the 20th Century; shaped by her experience as a nurse in London during the Blitz, after her marriage and 1948 move to America influenced by Transcendentalism and her friends and collaborators Charles Olson and William Carlos Williams, moving through recognition as a Beat poet and a voice of eco-feminism, a fearless and theatrical championing of the Peace movement, and a lifelong resistance to fascism, racism, imperialism, and injustices of all kinds, radicalisms during the 1960's for which she became an icon of the counterculture, and finally with the poetry volume Evening Train moving into religious verse in accord with her 1984 conversion to Catholicism, when Liberation Theology clergy were organizing revolution in Latin America. Her poetry from this final period is comparable to the visions of Saint Theresa of Avila.
New & Selected Essays and Tesserae: Memories & Suppositions together provide an illuminating bundle of her prose.
The Collected Poems, nearly a thousand pages of her life's work, includes all her poetry in one book. If you're sailing to an island hideaway for the season, you might bring this along.
As for single volumes of her poetry I would begin with her final best-ofs; The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes, The Life Around Us: Selected Poems on Nature, and This Great Unknowing: Last Poems.
For further reading I suggest :
Levertov's Poetry of Revelation, 1988–1998: The Mosaic of Nature and Spirit (Athens, Greece: George Dardanos, June 1999/February 2002), Liana Sakelliou.
A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov By Donna Krolik Hollenberg
University of California Press
A visionary poetry of ethereal, strange, impassioned glorias of nature and the Infinite, vivid and strange reimaginations of fairytales and myths (her poem An Embroidery about Rose Red will haunt my dreams forever), and of the values immanent in nature and of the struggle for meaning in a fallen world; Denise Levertov forged a dialectics of balance aligned with the Holism of Gregory Bateson in Mind and Nature: a necessary unity, and also with that of Tillie Olsen; a mythopoeic natural history which seeks to reveal the design of which it is an expression.
Complex and multilayered like the history she reflects, Denise Levertov remains the world's most important religious poet since Coleridge. She is also one of the most radical voices of the modern world, a pattern set in childhood when she went door to door with the Daily Worker and continued throughout a lifelong activism against war, inequality, and the authorized power of the state.
Raised in a home filled with reading, writing, and discussions about literature in Russian, Hebrew, English, and German and hailed as a child prodigy by the great T.S. Eliot, Denise Levertov became a figure of the 20th Century; shaped by her experience as a nurse in London during the Blitz, after her marriage and 1948 move to America influenced by Transcendentalism and her friends and collaborators Charles Olson and William Carlos Williams, moving through recognition as a Beat poet and a voice of eco-feminism, a fearless and theatrical championing of the Peace movement, and a lifelong resistance to fascism, racism, imperialism, and injustices of all kinds, radicalisms during the 1960's for which she became an icon of the counterculture, and finally with the poetry volume Evening Train moving into religious verse in accord with her 1984 conversion to Catholicism, when Liberation Theology clergy were organizing revolution in Latin America. Her poetry from this final period is comparable to the visions of Saint Theresa of Avila.
New & Selected Essays and Tesserae: Memories & Suppositions together provide an illuminating bundle of her prose.
The Collected Poems, nearly a thousand pages of her life's work, includes all her poetry in one book. If you're sailing to an island hideaway for the season, you might bring this along.
As for single volumes of her poetry I would begin with her final best-ofs; The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes, The Life Around Us: Selected Poems on Nature, and This Great Unknowing: Last Poems.
For further reading I suggest :
Levertov's Poetry of Revelation, 1988–1998: The Mosaic of Nature and Spirit (Athens, Greece: George Dardanos, June 1999/February 2002), Liana Sakelliou.
A Poet’s Revolution: The Life of Denise Levertov By Donna Krolik Hollenberg
University of California Press
February 22, 2023
The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov holds a special place in my heart because I lugged this (heavy!) book around during a student trip to Ireland, which I was lucky to take between high school and college. I have cherished memories of the trip, and these poems were a beautiful accompaniment to Ireland's lush landscape.
I guess any poet in their Collected Poems will have hits and misses. Yet, Levertov writes with inconsistent quality. Her great poems are truly great, but her lesser poems can be a slog.
This is highly biased, but I also don't think I can forgive Levertov for calling Emily Dickinson "a bitchy little spinster." Dickinson's my favorite poet, so I am sensitive to such critiques, and Levertov's comment feels unduly harsh. (Although, I will admit, slightly comical)
All in all, I love poetry, so I mainly enjoyed Levertov's poems. Some felt urgent, beautiful, and fresh. Many others left me cold.
I guess any poet in their Collected Poems will have hits and misses. Yet, Levertov writes with inconsistent quality. Her great poems are truly great, but her lesser poems can be a slog.
This is highly biased, but I also don't think I can forgive Levertov for calling Emily Dickinson "a bitchy little spinster." Dickinson's my favorite poet, so I am sensitive to such critiques, and Levertov's comment feels unduly harsh. (Although, I will admit, slightly comical)
All in all, I love poetry, so I mainly enjoyed Levertov's poems. Some felt urgent, beautiful, and fresh. Many others left me cold.
September 13, 2019
Excellent. Even the lesser poems are worthwhile.
April 21, 2014
I didn't read everything in this over one thousand page book, but I will probably check it out of the library (or buy my own copy) and read more in it again. Levertov is not the easiest poet to read, but her work is magentic; the more I read it, the more I want to read more of her work. It's creative and imaginative and the poet has a variety of interests as well as a strong social conscience.
April 20, 2018
I have been reading Denise Levertov's poems since I was in my twenties. I will keep reading them until I die. I simply want to say if you love her poems, this is the collection you need. If you love poetry, these are the poems you need to read.
August 1, 2025
This is very much “this is denise levertov on spotify” energy and i wish there were more collected collections like this in poetry.
“Next time I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open the door by fractions, eavesdrop peacefully.”
“Next time I’ll move like cautious sunlight, open the door by fractions, eavesdrop peacefully.”
Read
June 17, 2024It was good poetry, but such a large book that it got intimidating and then I had to bring it back to the library.
May 12, 2014
I f you know and love Denise Levertov's free-verse poetry, you will already have this complete collection on your list. Make sure you order it through your library, so they will have a copy for everyone to enjoy. I already own 20 volumes of Levertov's poetry and essays, but this one contains all the earlier, out-of-print and very expensive early volumes and other chapbooks of poetry, plus introductory essays. I know I will be purchasing it, hopefully before it, too becomes difficult to obtain. Then you will want to learn about her life via Dana Greene's biography: "Denise Levertov: A Poet's Life."
Read
April 9, 2014Overwhelming collection of 1063 pages. Although I enjoyed a few poems, I didn't have the time to really dive into it. Read a little bit, and then set it aside.
Read
December 19, 2014Anther fantastic anthology of great poems by a great poet. I especial love the Jacob's Ladder found poem.
June 19, 2015
Denise Levertov sounds like me, only much much better!
July 28, 2015
Excellent collection of Levertov with very little left out (Some books were, so it isn't really "Complete", but they were few and far between). Worth the read if you are a fan of her or DH Lawrence.
December 24, 2015
A really long book. Still perusing it. Looking for my favorites. I love many of her poems, but not all. I think she is an acquired taste.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews