Levine, Philip (Vol. 5) - Levine, Philip 1928–
Levine, Philip 1928–
Levine, an American poet, writes tough but compassionate poems about "pigs, thistles, thorny people who refuse to die." He studied under John Berryman and admires Ginsberg, Snyder, Kinnell, and Ted Hughes, but claims that no other writer has particularly influenced his work. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 9-12, rev. ed.)
Philip Levine's sixth book, 1933, is filled with persons and images from his past: his grandparents, parents, uncles; black Packards, knickers, Roosevelt, World War II, his childhood, first loves. Because he looks "in the corners of things" his poems are grounded simply on simple observations that somehow expand into tantalizing ambiguities…. Levine is not a flashy poet … and these poems are even "quieter" than those in They Feed They Lion, his previous book (1972). But his dark vision, which picks out mostly unpretty, visceral images, has remained constant: "the scattered...
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