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Secular or Eclectic : Beat
Jewish
20th Century

About Denise Levertov

Timeline (1923 - 1997)

Denise Levertov, Denise Levertov poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry, Beat poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry, Jewish poetry

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Original Language
English

Illustrious Ancestors

Themes
  Birds
  Silence
  Sound
 
 

 

Recommended Books

Breathing the Water, by Denise Levertov
Candles in Babylon, by Denise Levertov
Collected Earlier Poems: 1940 - 1960, by Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov: Poetry as Prayer, by Murray Bodo
Denise Levertov: Selected Poems, by Denise Levertov

More >>

The Rav
of Northern White Russia declined,
in his youth, to learn the
language of birds, because
the extraneous did not interest him; nevertheless
when he grew old it was found
he understood them anyway, having
listened well, and as it is said, 'prayed
               with the bench and the floor.' He used
what was at hand -- as did
Angel Jones of Mold, whose meditations
were sewn into coats and britches.
               Well, I would like to make,
thinking some line still taut between me and them,
poems direct as what the birds said,
hard as a floor, sound as a bench,
mysterious as the silence when the tailor
would pause with his needle in the air.

 

 

-- from A Big Jewish Book: Poems and Other Visions of the Jews from Tribal Times to the Present, Edited by Jerome Rothenberg

Amazon.com

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.