"act her age." She is "turbulent," dressing in both fine opals and rags; she thus knows the life of the wealthy and that of the poor. She know "strange songs," not simply the ones society teaches her to sing. She is a "moon-ridden girl," connoting a sense of mystical fantasy. This woman is innately interesting, not following the mandates of society but forging her own wild path through life. She has a fantastical sense of imagination—but she is not kind.

The speaker seems to therefore believe that women can either be nice and boring or wildly interesting and mean—but perhaps not both.

Ostensibly, the poem, "In Mind," is about two very different women. One of the women is simple and "unadorned." She is described as "fair-featured" with "light brown ... smooth" hair, and she smells of "apples or grass." She is also described as "kind" and "without / ostentation." This description connotes a simple, honest, country woman. This first woman seems ideal, but her one failing is that "she has / no imagination."

The second woman, by contrast, "is not kind," but she does have imagination. Indeed, her imagination is so fierce as to be "turbulent." This woman's imagination is so powerful that she can imagine herself as at once a "girl" and an "old woman." This second woman is also complex and difficult to define, as implied by the fact that she dresses "in opals and rags, feathers / and torn taffeta."

The idea behind this poem seems to be that kindness and imagination are mutually exclusive, meaning that one cannot be both kind and imaginative at the same time. This seems like a strange proposal, but if we take imaginative to be synonymous with creative, then perhaps it isn't such a strange proposal after all. For example, a writer might find it difficult to be kind and attentive to other people because he or she has to devote so much time to his or her craft. With this in mind, this poem might be autobiographical. Perhaps the poet, Denise Levertov, is wrestling with a dilemma in own life, and trying to choose between a life of dedication to her poetry on the one hand, and a kinder, more attentive life with her loved ones on the other.

Denise Levertov is known for writing poems that seem very simple on the surface. She takes common, every-day occurrences and observations and turns them into something metaphysical. She elevates familiar objects to symbols that represent her social and political views. Much of her poetry is anti-war poetry because her career was at its peak during the Viet Nam War. She is sometimes associated with the Beat Poets. Her themes are often spiritual.

This poem is talking about two different women. One is described as "innocent, unadorned, fair-featured, smelling of grass and apples" wearing a "utopian" dress. She is "clean" but not showy, and she is kind but she has no imagination.

The other woman is a "turbulent moon-ridden girl, or old woman, or both" who is dressed in "Opals and rags, feathers and torn taffeta" who knows "strange songs" but is "not kind."

Since Levertov was a 1960s poet, I envision these opposites as two women the poet perhaps observed on the streets of San Franciso, Haigt Ashbury. The first one is naive, innocent and stary-eyed (note the use of the word "utopian" to describe her). She may have come to San Francisco from the farms of Nebraska (she smells like grass and apples). She is kind, but she has no imagination. The other woman is wild, perhaps a hippie, she sings strange songs, but she is not kind. The poem does not say that she HAS imagination, but I think we can infer that in contrast to the first woman, the second one does have imagination - she sings strange songs - so this indicates she has imagination. Perhaps she is on drugs?

Now, from that.............what do these two women represent? That is for you to decide, and that is the beauty of poetry. Maybe they don't represent anything - maybe they just "are". What do you think?