Dec 27, 2009
“The Task” is a twenty-five-line poem composed of two stanzas written in free verse, which Denise Levertov herself would describe as “organic poetry.” The poem discusses the character and—as the title implies—the work of God. The opening six-line stanza presents a false image of God as an uncouth and somewhat threatening old man “always upstairs, sitting about/ in sleeveless undershirt,” his arms folded over his rumbling stomach. He is asleep and probably snoring since she concludes the stanza with the lines “his breath from open mouth/ strident,...
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