The Mercy (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Philip Levine
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Narrative/elegy
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Homelessness or homeless people, Voyages, Music or musicians, Art or artists, Writing, Immigration or emigration, Working class, Ships, Work or workers
- Locales: United States, Detroit, MI, Italy
The Poem
Philip Levine’s “The Mercy” consists of one thirty-eight-line stanza written in primarily five-beat free-verse lines. The poem takes its title from the ship that brought the poet’s mother to Ellis Island in the 1910’s. As in many of Levine’s poems, the grandeur and splendor of mercy is found in small and everyday events that offer only glimpses of the sublime, of redemption, and of joy. Such is the case in “The Mercy,” a narrative elegy that depicts the journey of his mother, at the age of nine, from one home to another. “The Mercy” is the ship she...
[The entire page is 1425 words long]
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