Levine, Philip 1978

Friday, March 17, 1978
Vintage poster of Philip Levine's reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.

Vintage poster of Philip Levine’s reading at the Poetry Center of Chicago.

I bend to the ground
to catch
something whispered,
urgent, drifting
across the ditches.
The heaviness of
flies stuttering
in orbit, dirt
ripening, the sweat
of eggs.

– Philip Levine, “Noon”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Listen to Philip Levine read from his work for the Poetry Foundation’s Poetry Lectures:

She packs the flower beds with leaves,
Rags, dampened paper, ties with twine
The lemon tree, but winter carves
Its features on the uprooted stem.

– Philip Levine, “For Fran”

Continue reading this poem⇒

Read this interview with Philip Levine from the Paris Review:

The Art of Poetry No. 39

Photograph by Frances Levine I was first introduced to Philip Levine through the mail in the summer of 1976. I was studying literature at Berkeley, and my friends and I, all college freshmen and sophomores, were ardent readers of Levine, W. S. Merwin, Donald Justice, Gary Snyder, and Hart C…

More info on Philip Levine⇒