Stranger to Nothing

Philip Levine is the authentic voice of America's urban poor. Born in 1928, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he spent his early years doing a succession of heavy labouring jobs. Trying to write poetry 'for people for whom there is no poetry', he chronicled the lives of the people he grew up with and worked with in Detroit: 'Their presence seemed utterly lacking in the poetry I inherited at age 20, so I've spent the last 40-some years trying to add to our poetry what wasn't there.' Much of his poetry addresses the joys and sufferings of industrial life, with radiant feeling, as well as painful irony: 'It took me a long time to be able to write about it without snarling or snapping. I had to temper the violence I felt toward those who maimed and cheated me with a tenderness toward those who had touched and blessed me.' Always a poet of memory and invention, Philip Levine has continually written poems which search for universal truths. His plain-speaking poetry is a testament to the durability of love, the strength of the human spirit and the persistence of life in the face of death.

ISBN 1852247371   DEWEY edition DC22 ISBN13 9781852247379 (What's this?)   Pages 176 Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd   Published in Tyne and Wear Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd   Height (mm) 234 Format Paperback   Width (mm) 156 Publication date 15 Jun 2006   Academic level General DEWEY 811.54

		For Fran		11
		On the edge		12
		The horse		13
		A new day		14
		Blasting from heaven		15
		The cemetery at academy, California		16
		Animals are passing from our lives		18
		Baby Villon		19
		Clouds		20
		Red dust		22
		A sleepless night		23
		Salami		24
		Saturday sweeping		26
		Angel butcher		28
		They feed they lion		30
		To P.L., 1916-1937		31
		Breath		33
		Zaydee		35
		Grandmother in heaven		37
		The poem circling Hamtramck, Michigan, all night in search of you		38
		Uncle		40
		1933		41
		Belle Isle, 1949		44
		New season		45
		Wednesday		48
		On the murder of Lieutenant Jose del Castile by the falangist Bravo Martinez, July 12, 1936		49
		And the trains go on		50
		To my God in his sickness		52
		Starlight		55
		On a drawing by Flavio		56
		Ashes		57
		Francisco, I'll bring you red carnations		58
		More...

'Levine's poetic vision, nearly religious, transcends class, transcends natural boundaries, and transcends time... Masterly' - Peter Davison, Atlantic Monthly 'What I particularly admire about Mr Levine's work is its great emotional riskiness, its large, deeply felt commitments ...In a reactionary and forgetful time these radiantly human and memorialising poems can help us understand our lives' - Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review 'Levine is a revelation and a rarity...As with Whitman, this is democratic art that does not slum' - Philadelphia Inquirer

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