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.BiographyPhilip 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.to add this poet to your My Favorite Poets. ( 12:40:00 AM)On What Work IsPhilip Levine's poetry evokes the vibrant durability and continuity of things. It is no accident that the seemingly unbreakable thistle, which survives California's harsh summers, is his 'flower.'
![]()
At least he has celebrated it in such a way throughout his books. Possibly he has done so because its work is to survive, and it does. The way we must, impassively committed surviving, standing up though the harsh heat, the inevitable storms.
What Work Is Poem
Levine's poem, 'What Work Is, ' should be read in this context. To work is to survive, and the details of how difficult or debased work can be are evoked in the title poem and the poem 'Growth' (each the book What Work Is). Levine was the man, he suffered, he was there. But the symbolic importance of work operates as an emblem of the soul as well, since not knowing how to love, Levine writes, is to not 'know what work is.' We may seem to be closer here to the meaning of work as it occurs in the tragedies, desolations, and betrayals of the remarkable book of poems Hard Labor by the Italian poet Cesare Pavese than to the Whitman of 'A Song of Occupations.
But the paradox that Whitman extols, where 'Objects gross and the unseen soul are one' are filtered through a rich groove into Levine's book in the poem 'Soloing.' In the poem his mother tells him 'she dreamed/ of John Coltrane, 'a young Trane/ playing his music with such joy/ and contained energy and rage/ she could not hold back her tears/.' Levine sees the dream visitation as a Dream Vision, a gift of music from the great musician so lasting in the force of his passion that he is retained within, and resurfaces out of, the 'unseen' after death in the mother's dream. And here the poet, almost Dante-like, coming into the smogged-over sea-dead L.A. Basin simultaneously presents the dignified but saddened alone-ness of the mother with the mother who is still a source of sustenance, whose work as a mother is not over. There is then a placental quality to the poem since the mother's dream itself was the substance that fed the poet-son's language.
Dj spinna sonic smash rar. DJ Spinna - Sonic Smash 2009. Elemental (feat. Sputnik Brown) 03. Lyrics Is Back (feat.
![]()
The remarkable quality, especially of Levine's later poems, is this capacity for lucidly evoking the subtleties of how the inner and outer worlds of experience inter-relate. He could also be saying that sometimes you have to go through hell, and that it is worth going through hell, to receive a gift from the mother—herself a symbol of what primarily sustains and devours all. But the possibly deeper comical or mystical intent is incidental. At the foundation of Levine's poetry is the durability that arises out of integrity: he is committed to finishing the 'job, ' knowing there are all the reasons in the world to hesitate, but that if he did quit, if he were to ever 'have turned back, ' he would have 'lost the music.'
One of Levine’s best books.dorenrobbins.com. An Abandoned Factory, DetroitThe gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,An iron authority against the snow,And this grey monument to common senseResists the weather. Fears of idle hands,Of protest, men in league, and of the slowCorrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.Beyond, through broken windows one can seeWhere the great presses paused between their strokesAnd thus remain, in air suspended, caughtIn the sure margin of eternity.The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokesWhich movement blurred, the struts inertia fought.
Autoplay next videoWe stand in the rain in a long linewaiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.You know what work is—if you'reold enough to read this you know whatwork is, although you may not do it.Forget you.
This is about waiting,shifting from one foot to another.Feeling the light rain falling like mistinto your hair, blurring your visionuntil you think you see your own brotherahead of you, maybe ten places.You rub your glasses with your fingers,and of course it's someone else's brother,narrower across the shoulders thanyours but with the same sad slouch, the grinthat does not hide the stubbornness,the sad refusal to give in torain, to the hours wasted waiting,to the knowledge that somewhere aheada man is waiting who will say, 'No,we're not hiring today,' for anyreason he wants. You love your brother,now suddenly you can hardly standthe love flooding you for your brother,who's not beside you or behind orahead because he's home trying tosleep off a miserable night shiftat Cadillac so he can get upbefore noon to study his German.Works eight hours a night so he can singWagner, the opera you hate most,the worst music ever invented.How long has it been since you told himyou loved him, held his wide shoulders,opened your eyes wide and said those words,and maybe kissed his cheek?
You've neverdone something so simple, so obvious,not because you're too young or too dumb,not because you're jealous or even meanor incapable of crying inthe presence of another man, no,just because you don't know what work is. ( 5:43:00 PM)Philip Levine's poetry evokes the vibrant durability and continuity of things. It is no accident that the seemingly unbreakable thistle, which survives California's harsh summers, is his 'flower.' At least he has celebrated it in such a way throughout his books. Possibly he has done so because its work is to survive, and it does.
![]()
The way we must, impassively committed surviving, standing up though the harsh heat, the inevitable storms. Levine's poem, 'What Work Is, ' should be read in this context. To work is to survive, and the details of how difficult or debased work can be are evoked in the title poem and the poem 'Growth' (each the book What Work Is). Levine was the man, he suffered, he was there. But the symbolic importance of work operates as an emblem of the soul as well, since not knowing how to love, Levine writes, is to not 'know what work is.' We may seem to be closer here to the meaning of work as it occurs in the tragedies, desolations, and betrayals of the remarkable book of poems Hard Labor by the Italian poet Cesare Pavese than to the Whitman of 'A Song of Occupations.' From Doren Robbins essay On What Work Is (Daily Iowan 1992).
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |