Selected Poems

Drawing on six decades of her writing life, this Selected Poems offers a chronological overview of Denise Levertov's great body of work. Here at last is a clear, unobstructed view of her groundbreaking poetry -- the work of a poet who, as Kenneth Rexroth put it, "more than anyone, led the redirection of American poetry ... to the mainstream of world literature." Book jacket.

PREFACE by Robert Creeley

xiii

EARLY AND UNCOLLECTED POEMS

Listening to Distant Drums

1

(1)

THE DOUBLE IMAGE (1946)

Childhoods End

1

(1)

Poem ("Some are too much at home in the role of wanderer")

2

(1)

Too Easy, to Write of Miracles

3

(1)

HERE AND NOW (1957)

The Earthwoman and the Waterwoman

4

(1)

The Marriage

4

(1)

The Marriage (II)

5

(1)

Laying the Dust

5

(1)

Everything that Acts Is Natural

6

(1)

OVERLAND TO THE ISLANDS (1958)

Overland to the Islands

7

(1)

The Instant

7

(1)

Illustrious Ancestors

8

(1)

Action

8

(2)

Merritt Parkway

10

(2)

WITH EYES AT THE BACK OF OUR HEADS (1960)

With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads

12

(1)

Pleasures

13

(1)

To the Snake

14

(1)

Obsessions

14

(1)

The Dead

15

(1)

Terror

15

(1)

THE JACOB'S LADDER (1961)

A Common Ground

16

(3)

Come into Animal Presence

19

(1)

A Map of the Western Part of the County of Essex in England

20

(2)

Three Meditations

22

(3)

The Jacob's Ladder

25

(1)

The Tulips

26

(1)

During the Eichmann Trial: "When We Look Up"

27

(3)

O TASTE AND SEE (1964)

The Ache of Marriage

30

(1)

Song for Ishtar

30

(1)

Claritas

31

(2)

The Secret

33

(1)

September 1961

34

(2)

O Taste and See

36

(1)

Eros at Temple Stream

37

(1)

The Stone-Carver's Poem

38

(1)

The Disclosure

38

(1)

About Marriage

39

(1)

The Prayer

40

(2)

Hypocrite Women

42

(1)

In Mind

43

(1)

THE SORROW DANCE (1967)

The Wings

44

(2)

Joy

46

(3)

Annuals

49

(1)

The Mutes

50

(1)

The Cat as Cat

51

(1)

Living

52

(1)

A Lamentation

53

(1)

Olga Poems

54

(8)

The Closed World

62

(1)

Second Didactic Poem

62

(2)

Life at War

64

(1)

To Speak

65

(1)

Bedtime

66

(1)

RELEARNING THE ALPHABET (1970)

Relearning the Alphabet

67

(10)

The Broken Sandal

77

(1)

The Cold Spring

78

(4)

At David's Grave

82

(1)

What Wild Dawns There Were

83

(1)

July 1968

84

(1)

A Cloak

85

(1)

A Tree Telling of Orpheus

86

(5)

TO STAY ALIVE (1971)

Advent 1966

91

(1)

Tenebrae

92

(1)

"Staying Alive" (excerpts)

93

(1)

i. At the Justice Department November 15, 1969

93

(1)

ii. Gandhi's Gun (and Brecht's Vow)

94

(2)

Entr'acte 'Let Us Sing Unto the Lord a New Song'

96

(1)

FOOTPRINTS (1972)

Love Poem

97

(1)

3 a.m., September 1, 1969

98

(1)

The Wanderer

98

(1)

The Old King

99

(1)

Memories of John Keats

100

(1)

To Antonio Machado

101

(1)

The Life Around Us

101

(1)

THE FREEING OF THE DUST (1975)

Living Alone (I)

102

(1)

Living Alone (II)

103

(1)

Living Alone (III)

103

(1)

Divorcing

104

(1)

Libation

105

(1)

Prayer for Revolutionary Love

106

(1)

The Freeing of the Dust

107

(1)

The Woman

108

(1)

The Life of Others

109

(1)

LIFE IN THE FOREST (1978)

A Woman Alone

110

(2)

Chekhov on the West Heath

112

(5)

The 90th Year

117

(1)

A Soul-Cake

118

(2)

Talking to Grief

120

(1)

Wedding-Ring

121

(1)

CANDLES IN BABYLON (1982)

Talking to Oneself

122

(2)

Poet and Person

124

(1)

The Dragon-fly Mother

125

(3)

Candles in Babylon

128

(1)

Williams: An Essay

128

(2)

Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus

130

(7)

Beginners

137

(1)

Concurrence

138

(1)

She and the Muse

139

(1)

OBLIQUE PRAYERS (1984)

Decipherings

140

(2)

The Avowal

142

(1)

St. Peter and the Angel

143

(1)

The Antiphon

144

(1)

Of Being

144

(1)

"...That Passeth All Understanding"

145

(1)

BREATHING THE WATER (1987)

The Servant Girl at Emmaus

146

(1)

"I learned that her name was Proverb"

146

(1)

Hunting the Phoenix

147

(1)

The Spirits Appeased

148

(1)

Caedmon

149

(1)

Making Peace

150

(1)

During a Son's Dangerous Illness

151

(1)

On a Theme from Julian's Chapter XX

152

(2)

The Showings: Lady Julian of Norwich, 1342-1416)

154

(7)

Variation and Reflection on a Theme by Rilke (The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 7)

161

(1)

A DOOR IN THE HIVE (1989)

Annuniciation

162

(2)

Braiding

164

(1)

Flickering Mind

165

(1)

The Love of Morning

166

(1)

Wings in the Pedlar's Pack

167

(1)

St. Thomas Didymus

168

(3)

The Life of Art

171

(1)

To Rilke

172

(1)

A Traveler

172

(1)

A Woodcut

173

(1)

Web

174

(1)

Ikon; The Harrowing of Hell

174

(2)

EVENING TRAIN (1992)

Suspended

176

(1)

Settling

176

(1)

Elusive

177

(1)

Effacement

177

(1)

Presence

178

(1)

Open Secret

178

(1)

For Bet

179

(1)

Flowers of Sophia

179

(1)

Evening Train

180

(1)

Witness

181

(1)

Salvador Mundi: Via Crucis

182

(1)

SANDS OF THE WELL (1998)

What Harbinger?

183

(1)

Le Motif

183

(1)

In Question

184

(1)

The Mystery of Deep Candor

184

(1)

Sojourns in the Parallel World

185

(1)

The Change

186

(1)

For Those Whom the Gods Love Less

187

(1)

Conversion of Brother Lawrence

188

(2)

Pentimento

190

(1)

Sands of the Well

191

(1)

Primary Wonder

192

(1)

Crow Spring

193

(1)

In Whom We Live and Move and Have Our Being

194

(1)

THIS GREAT UNKNOWING; LAST POEMS (1999)

Celebration

194

(1)

First Love

195

(2)

Roast Potatoes

197

(2)

the mountains daily speech is silence

199

(1)

Once Only

199

(1)

The Métier of Blossoming

200

(2)

Enduring Love

202

(1)

AFTERWORD by Paul A. Lacey

203

(10)

NOTES

213

(2)

INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES

215

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