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Denise Levertov Biography

Denise Levertov

Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was an American poet.

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Denise Levertov Quotes

We have the words in our pockets, obscure directions. The old ones have taken away the light of their presence.

Away, Light, Old, Poetry, Taken

my pleasure was in the strength of my back, in my noble shoulders, the cool smooth flesh cylinders of my arms.

Back, Dream, Flesh, Noble, Smooth

The artist must create himself or be born again.

Art, Artist, Born Again, Create, Born

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night.

Doors, Flower, Night, Wakes, Years

Let the space under the first storey be dark, let the water lap the stone posts, and vivid green slime glimmer upon them; let a boat be kept there.

Boat, Dark, Glimmer, Space, Storey, Water

Images split the truth in fractions.

Fractions, Images, Split, Splits, Truth

Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!

Doubt, Doubts, Dubiously, Hypocrite, Men, Mother

I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

Close, Experience, Poem, Prayer, Praying, Writing

When you're really caught up in writing a poem, it can be a form of prayer. I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer. I feel it in different degrees and not with every poem. But in certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

Certain, Degrees, Prayer, Praying, Writing

If woman is inconstant, good, I am faithful to ebb and flow, I fall in season and now is a time of ripening.

Ebb And Flow, Faithful, Fall, Flow, Time, Women

blue bead on the wick, there's that in me that burns and chills, blackening my heart with its soot, I think sometimes not Apollo heard me but a different god.

Apollo, Blue, Heart, Thinking

Among a hundred windows shining dully in the vast side of greater-than-palace number such-and-such one burns these several years, each night as if the room within were aflame.

Night, Years, Numbers, Shining, Side

I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it was deep water. Eschatology is a word I learned as a child: the study of Last Things; facing my mirror—no longer young, the news—always of death, the dogs—rising from sleep and clamoring and howling, howling. . . . ("Seeing For a Moment")

Children, Dog, Fire, Longer, Sleep, Thought

Prophetic utterance, like poetic utterance, transforms experience and moves the receiver to new attitudes. The kinds of experience--the recognitions or revelations--out of which both prophecy and poetry emerge, are such as to stir the prophet or poet to speech that may exceed their own known capacities; they are "inspired," they breathe in revelation and breathe out new words; and by so doing they transfer over to the listener or reader a parallel experience, a parallel intensity, which impels that person into new attitudes and new actions.

Attitude, Capacities, Like, Moving, Poetry, Receiver

So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.

Absolute, Breathing, Happiness, Hear, Quiet

Very few people really see things unless they've had someone in early life who made them look at things. And name them too. But the looking is primary, the focus.

Early, Life, Names, People, See

Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -

Clean, Dress, Scarlet, Tears, Tree, Who I Am

We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.

Admitting, Call, Disaster, Loss, Nature

Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.

August, Breathe, Hovers, Sweetness

Through the hollow globe, a ring of frayed rusty scrapiron, is it the sea that shines? Is it a road at the world's edge?

Edge, Road, Sea, Shining, World

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