Selected Poems
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Written by Robert Creeley, Paul A. Lacey, Denise Levertov, and Paul Lacey.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
Denise Levertov's Selected Poems delivers in a single accessible volume "one of the essential poets of our time" (Poetry Flash).Culled from two dozen poetry books, and drawing from six decades of her writing life, The Selected Poems of Denise Levertov offers a chronological overview of her great body of work. It is splendid and impressive to have at last a clear, unobstructed view of her ground-breaking poetry—the work of a poet who, as Kenneth Rexroth put it, "more than anyone, led the redirection of American poetry...to the mainstream of world literature."
Described by Publishers Weekly as "at once as intimate as Creeley and as visionary as Duncan," Levertov was lauded as "one of the indispensable poets of our language, one of those few writers to whom it is necessary to pay attention" by The Malahat Review. No poet is more overdue for a single accessible volume; no career could be better to have within easy reach.
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Nic Sebastian thinks this book is Good.
Selected Poems by Denise Levertov. This edition has a preface by Robert Creeley and was edited by Paul Lacey. Lacey divides her poems into three phases – the first, when she was just Levertov (the Ache of Marriage and the Green Snake period, heh); the second, when she became politically conscious and the third, when she turned towards religion and got busy converting to Catholicism. I had a great time with the collection until about page 152, at which point everything becomes a sort of ekphrasis centered around Julian of Norwich and Rilke, and rather tiresome and way too intense if you are not into that sort of thing. But there's a great deal of everything in the best possible way before that – about family, marriage, friends, womanhood, love & dreams, and all those other good things poets write about. She reminds me a lot of Annie Dillard – trenchant and questioning and ever-conscious of the pain of being human. Her magical turns of phrase exhilarate and sicken you with envy as much as Dillards do. Also had a good time examining her linebreaks -- check them out! Definitely worth the read.