Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertovwas a British-born American poet...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 October 1923
teacher jobs teaching
Teachers at all levels encourage the idea that you have to talk about things in order to understand them, because they wouldn't have jobs, otherwise. But it's phony, you know.
summer july fire
The fire in leaf and grass so green it seems each summer the last summer.
peace war mind
Peace as a positive condition of society, not merely as an interim between wars, is something so unknown that it casts no images on the mind's screen.
encouragement imagination affliction
Affliction is more apt to suffocate the imagination than to stimulate it.
who-i-am tree tears
Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -
inspirational-life names people
Very few people really see things unless they've had someone in early life who made them look at things. And name them too. But the looking is primary, the focus.
there-comes-a-time
There comes a time when only anger is love.
book thinking effectiveness
I don't think one can accurately measure the historical effectiveness of a poem; but one does know, of course, that books influence individuals; and individuals, although they are part of large economic and social processes, influence history. Every mass is after all made up of millions of individuals.
pain white knowing
Death and pain dominate this world, for though many are cured, they leave still weak, still tremulous, still knowing mortality has whispered to them; have seen in the folding of white bedspreads according to rule the starched pleats of a shroud.
prayer spring flames
At Delphi I prayed to Apollo that he maintain in me the flame of the poem and I drank of the brackish spring there....
flower light gold
slowly the pale dew-beads of light lapped up from flowers can thicken, darken to gold: honey of the human.
hair honey dropping
Beespittle, droppings, hairs of beefur: all become honey. Virulent micro-organisms cannot survive in honey.
happiness breathing quiet
So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.
time water breathe
We must breathe time as fishes breathe water.