Philip Levine (poet)
Encyclopedia
Philip Levine is a Pulitzer Prize
-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno
and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He is appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012.
radio priest Father Coughlin.
Levine started to work in car manufacturing plants at the age of 14. He graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1946 and went to college at Wayne University (now Wayne State University
) in Detroit, where he began to write poetry, encouraged by his mother, to whom he later dedicated the book of poems The Mercy. Levine got his A.B. in 1950 and went to work for Chevrolet
and Cadillac
in what he calls "stupid jobs". He married his first wife Patty Kanterman in 1951. The marriage lasted until 1953. In 1953 he went to the University of Iowa
without registering, studying among others with poets Robert Lowell
and John Berryman
, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor". In 1954 he graduated with a mail-order masters degree with a thesis on John Keats
' "Ode to Indolence", and married actress Frances J. Artley. He returned to the University of Iowa teaching technical writing, completing his Master of Fine Arts
degree in 1957. The same year, he was awarded the Jones Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University
. In 1958 he joined the English Department at California State University in Fresno, where he taught until his retirement in 1992. He has also taught at many other universities, among them New York University as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, at Columbia
, Princeton
, Brown
, Tufts
, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Levine and his wife live in Fresno and Brooklyn.
Levine's working experience lent his poetry a profound skepticism in regard to conventional American ideals. In his first two books, On the Edge (1963) and Not This Pig (1968), the poetry dwells on those who suddenly become aware they are trapped in some murderous processes not of their own making. In 1968, Levine signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In his first two books, Levine was somewhat traditional in form and relatively constrained in expression. Beginning with They Feed They Lion, Levine's poems are typically free-verse monologues tending toward trimeter
or tetrameter
. The music of Levine's poetry depends on tension between his line-breaks and his syntax. The title poem of Levine's book 1933 (1974) is an example of the cascade of clauses and phrases one finds in his poetry. Other collections include the National Book Award-winning What Work Is, A Walk with Tom Jefferson, and in his New Selected Poems.
On November 29, 2007 a tribute was held in New York City in anticipation of Levine's 80th birthday. Among those celebrating Levine's career by reading Levine's work were Yusef Komunyakaa
, Galway Kinnell
, E. L. Doctorow
, Charles Wright
, Jean Valentine
, and Sharon Olds
. Levine himself read several new poems. He thanked his students and asked them to refrain from asking for any more letters of recommendation.
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno
California State University, Fresno
California State University, Fresno, often referred to as Fresno State University and synonymously known in athletics as Fresno State , is one of the leading campuses of the California State University system, located at the northeast edge of Fresno, California, USA.The campus sits at the foot of...
and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He is appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012.
Biography
Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit, the second of three sons and the first of identical twins of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Harry Levine, owned a used auto parts business, his mother, Esther Priscol (Prisckulnick) Levine, was a bookseller. When Levine was five years old, his father died. Growing up, he faced the anti-Semitism embodied by the pro-HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
radio priest Father Coughlin.
Levine started to work in car manufacturing plants at the age of 14. He graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1946 and went to college at Wayne University (now Wayne State University
Wayne State University
Wayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
) in Detroit, where he began to write poetry, encouraged by his mother, to whom he later dedicated the book of poems The Mercy. Levine got his A.B. in 1950 and went to work for Chevrolet
Chevrolet
Chevrolet , also known as Chevy , is a brand of vehicle produced by General Motors Company . Founded by Louis Chevrolet and ousted GM founder William C. Durant on November 3, 1911, General Motors acquired Chevrolet in 1918...
and Cadillac
Cadillac
Cadillac is an American luxury vehicle marque owned by General Motors . Cadillac vehicles are sold in over 50 countries and territories, but mostly in North America. Cadillac is currently the second oldest American automobile manufacturer behind fellow GM marque Buick and is among the oldest...
in what he calls "stupid jobs". He married his first wife Patty Kanterman in 1951. The marriage lasted until 1953. In 1953 he went to the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
without registering, studying among others with poets Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
and John Berryman
John Berryman
John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...
, the latter of which Levine called his "one great mentor". In 1954 he graduated with a mail-order masters degree with a thesis on John Keats
John Keats
John Keats was an English Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before his death.Although his poems were not...
' "Ode to Indolence", and married actress Frances J. Artley. He returned to the University of Iowa teaching technical writing, completing his Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree in 1957. The same year, he was awarded the Jones Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
. In 1958 he joined the English Department at California State University in Fresno, where he taught until his retirement in 1992. He has also taught at many other universities, among them New York University as Distinguished Writer-in-Residence, at Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Brown
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
, Tufts
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
, and the University of California at Berkeley.
Levine and his wife live in Fresno and Brooklyn.
Work
The familial, social, and economic world of 20th century Detroit is one of the major subjects of Levine's life work. His portraits of working class Americans and his continuous examination of his Jewish immigrant inheritance (both based on real life and described through fictional characters) has left a testimony of mid-20th century American life.Levine's working experience lent his poetry a profound skepticism in regard to conventional American ideals. In his first two books, On the Edge (1963) and Not This Pig (1968), the poetry dwells on those who suddenly become aware they are trapped in some murderous processes not of their own making. In 1968, Levine signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
In his first two books, Levine was somewhat traditional in form and relatively constrained in expression. Beginning with They Feed They Lion, Levine's poems are typically free-verse monologues tending toward trimeter
Trimeter
In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line—example:...
or tetrameter
Tetrameter
Tetrameter: [ti'tramitə]; te·tram·e·ter; a verse of four measuresOrigin: early 17th century : from late Latin tetrametrus, originally neuter from Greek tetrametros 'having four measures,' from tetra- 'four' + metron 'measure'....
. The music of Levine's poetry depends on tension between his line-breaks and his syntax. The title poem of Levine's book 1933 (1974) is an example of the cascade of clauses and phrases one finds in his poetry. Other collections include the National Book Award-winning What Work Is, A Walk with Tom Jefferson, and in his New Selected Poems.
On November 29, 2007 a tribute was held in New York City in anticipation of Levine's 80th birthday. Among those celebrating Levine's career by reading Levine's work were Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet who currently teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly...
, Galway Kinnell
Galway Kinnell
Galway Kinnell is an American poet. He was Poet Laureate of Vermont from 1989 to 1993. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St...
, E. L. Doctorow
E. L. Doctorow
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow is an American author.- Biography :Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was born in the Bronx, New York City, the son of second-generation Americans of Russian Jewish descent...
, Charles Wright
Charles Wright (poet)
Charles Wright is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award Charles Wright (born August 25, 1935) is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award Charles Wright (born August 25, 1935) is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award (19830 for...
, Jean Valentine
Jean Valentine
Jean Valentine is an American poet, and currently the New York State Poet . Her poetry collection, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003, was awarded the 2004 National Book Award for Poetry....
, and Sharon Olds
Sharon Olds
-Life:Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco. She was raised as a “hellfire Calvinist”, as she describes it. She says she was by nature "a pagan and a pantheist" and notes "I was in a church where there was both great literary art and bad literary art, the great art being psalms and the bad...
. Levine himself read several new poems. He thanked his students and asked them to refrain from asking for any more letters of recommendation.
Awards
- 2011 Appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (United States Poet Laureate).
- 1995 Pulitzer Prize for PoetryPulitzer PrizeThe Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
– The Simple Truth (1994) - 1991 National Book AwardNational Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
, Los Angeles Times Book Prize – What Work Is - 1987 Ruth Lilly Poetry PrizeRuth Lilly Poetry PrizeThe Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation; the Foundation also publishes Poetry. The Prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. The prize honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition"; its value is presently $100,000...
from the Modern Poetry Association and the American Council for the Arts - 1981 Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine
- 1980 American Book Award (National Book Award)National Book AwardThe National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Poetry – Ashes: Poems New and Old, Guggenheim FoundationJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial FoundationThe John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
fellowship - 1979 National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle AwardThe National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
– Ashes: Poems New and Old – 7 Years from Somewhere - 1978 Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from Poetry
- 1977 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize – The Names of the Lost (1975)
- 1973 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Frank O'Hara Prize, Guggenheim Foundation fellowship
Poetry collections
- News of the World, Random House, Inc., 2009, ISBN 9780307272232
- Stranger to Nothing: Selected Poems, Bloodaxe BooksBloodaxe BooksBloodaxe Books is a British publishing house specialising in poetry.-History:It was founded in 1978 in Newcastle upon Tyne by Neil Astley, who is still editor and managing director. Joined in 1982 by chairman Simon Thirsk, Astley was later awarded an honorary D.Litt by Newcastle University in 1995...
, UK, 2006, ISBN 9781852247379 - Breath Knopf, 2004, ISBN 9781400042913; reprint, Random House, Inc., 2006, ISBN 9780375710780
- The Mercy, Random House, Inc., 1999, ISBN 9780375701351
- Unselected Poems, Greenhouse Review Press, 1997, ISBN 9780965523905
- The Simple Truth, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, ISBN 9780679435808; Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, ISBN 9780679765844
- What Work IsWhat Work IsWhat Work Is is a collection of American poetry by the current Poet Laureate, Philip Levine. It was first published in 1991 by Alfred A. Knoff, Inc. in New York. This poetry collection won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1991. After Levine was named Poet Laureate, What Work Is graced the top...
, Knopf, 1992, ISBN 9780679740582 - New Selected Poems, Knopf, 1991, ISBN 9780679401650
- A Walk With Tom Jefferson, A.A. Knopf, 1988, ISBN 9780394570389
- Sweet Will, Atheneum, 1985, ISBN 9780689115851
- Selected Poems, Atheneum, 1984, ISBN 9780689114564
- One for the Rose, Atheneum, 1981, ISBN 9780689112232
- 7 Years From Somewhere, Atheneum, 1979, ISBN 9780689109744
- Ashes: Poems New and Old, Atheneum, 1979, ISBN 9780689109751
- The Names of the Lost, Atheneum, 1976
- 1933, Atheneum, 1974, ISBN 9780689105869
- They Feed They Lion, Atheneum, 1972
- Red Dust (1971)
- Pili's Wall, Unicorn Press, 1971; Unicorn Press, 1980
- Not This Pig, Wesleyan University Press, 1968, ISBN 9780819520388; Wesleyan University Press, 1982, ISBN 9780819510389
- On the Edge (1963)
Translations
- Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes, edited and translated with Ada Long (1984)
- Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines, edited and translated With Ernesto Trejo (1979)