To ask other readers questions about Elegy , please sign up. Lists with This Book. Aug 08, Kevin Lawrence rated it really liked it Shelves: This would've been one of the best volumes of poetry I've read in a long time but for the middle section. There seems to be something for the Baby Boomer Generation of American poets that compelled them to try and imaginatively inhabit and write from the basest instincts of murderers, rapists, and just your general human monsters.
Levis joins poets like Ai, Stephen Dobyns, Carolyn Forche, and even Frank Bidart in this effort to try and bring a poetic sensibility to rendering moments of torture a This would've been one of the best volumes of poetry I've read in a long time but for the middle section. Levis joins poets like Ai, Stephen Dobyns, Carolyn Forche, and even Frank Bidart in this effort to try and bring a poetic sensibility to rendering moments of torture and abysmal destruction into the light of day--a kind of surreal naturalism that reads like Quinten Tarantino on the page sans the obnoxious sophomoric tone of whimsy.
I guess these are supposed to be noble attempts to sublimate the most depraved human behavior imaginable into something redeeming to his credit, Levis doesn't indulge in Tarantino's maniacal historical revisionist fantasies , but for me this type of poetry more often than not just ends up giving the reader a depraved and weary experience writing about forcing a friendly couple working as record store keepers to drink Drano after raping the woman in front of her boyfriend, as one poem in Levis' middle section does, is simply wearying in its pointless details and in its utter depravity.
Luckily, the other two sections of Levis' final book are much more engaging and as the title suggests have a poignant elegiac tone about reaching middle age and trying to find beauty and purpose that will somehow sustain life. In a poem about the Cumaean Sibyl whom Apollo granted eternal life to but not eternal youth, "Elegy with a Thimbleful of Water in the Cage," Levis asks: Highly recommend these sections to anyone who is interested in posts American poetry. Sep 15, Michael Gossett rated it it was amazing. If not his best, his second best behind 'The Widening Spell A posthumous collection, 'Elegy' stands as just that to its tremendous author.
Levis is, without question, my favorite contemporary poet. Mar 03, Jim McGarrah rated it liked it. Larry Levis died suddenly in May of and it was a great loss for contemporary poetry. There is no way to measure how many more poems he would be writing if he were still alive. Elegy was his final collection of poems and a good enough collection that it makes me sad that Levis will write no more. Phil Levine put the collection together from notes and poems that Levis Larry Levis died suddenly in May of and it was a great loss for contemporary poetry.
Phil Levine put the collection together from notes and poems that Levis left behind. To the discomfort of the reader that means some of what we read is not Larry at his best.
Most good poets, and I think he was a great one, live in a state of constant revision. For a poet, it may never be finally finished, but we may eventually let it go. I had the feeling that, with some of these poems, Levis may not have been ready to let them go. He was always a writer with tremendous imagistic range and the ability to leap time and space without losing a reader. You can sense this same genius in many of the poems in Elegy. Some of them, though, seem to leap in one direction or another and never come back.
Oct 22, Kent rated it it was amazing Shelves: Every time I read this book, I feel how much a tragedy it is that Levis didn't get to call this mss complete, if only because of the few rusty spots, and if only because of the outrageous departure this book is from Widening Spell that was published only four years previous. The feeling of human futility may carry from one book to the next, and I personally find the poems in Widening Spell have a scope of ambition to them that is beyond what this book is striving for.
But I appreciate the breadt Every time I read this book, I feel how much a tragedy it is that Levis didn't get to call this mss complete, if only because of the few rusty spots, and if only because of the outrageous departure this book is from Widening Spell that was published only four years previous. But I appreciate the breadth of subject matter here.
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And the full engagement with this sentiment as it plays out in each of the narratives. Apr 11, Kate rated it really liked it.
Some of these poems were almost unbearably depressing: Dec 11, Carrie Lorig rated it it was ok. Aug 26, Leah rated it really liked it Shelves: Leaving a star off since this work was compiled posthumously and the editorial touches are not his. Walking under the trees there Was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Did he mean walking there?
Did he mean the empty, shaded Spaces beneath the trees where he rested After sending his men off to a I love Levis. Did he mean the empty, shaded Spaces beneath the trees where he rested After sending his men off to accomplish some task? Did he mean someone he saw?
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But the entire point of the entry, the impossible Chore he had assigned the men, Was to be left alone there, With the sky washed clean above him, with the sun Burning through all its likenesses To be what it is, by erasing them. Feb 18, Helen rated it really liked it. Elegy is a posthumous collection of Larry Levis' poetry collected by his friend and fellow poet Phillip Levine.
Many of the poems are in fact elegies, not just to people, but to horses, ideas, and places. The poems are lovely and heartbreaking when you realize that we won't see any more of Levis' work. But one wonders if this is the collection Levis would have wanted to come out. Many of the poems, especially the elegies, feel unfinished, too long, unedited by a careful eye and hand. While death Elegy is a posthumous collection of Larry Levis' poetry collected by his friend and fellow poet Phillip Levine. While death creeps throughout most of the poems in this collection, it doesn't necessarily feel like there's an overall arc, some poems stick out in places and one wonders why they were put there in the first place.
A lovely example of the poet's work, but not necessarily the most successfully collected. Jan 13, Rachel rated it it was amazing Shelves: Mar 16, missy jean rated it really liked it Shelves: Levis used to teach at the University of Utah, so some of these poems are set in Utah my home state. I love reading poetry and prose that is set in Utah, because it tends to have such a naturalistic bent.
We are in that wild, "untamed west," after all, and my childhood in Utah was filled with snow-covered mountains and red rock deserts. I know what it is to love a pine tree or a piece of prehistoric stone with such intensity. Levis' poems use nature in such interesting ways--subtly and themati Levis used to teach at the University of Utah, so some of these poems are set in Utah my home state. Levis' poems use nature in such interesting ways--subtly and thematically, like background music.
Jan 16, DilanAc rated it it was amazing. A poet of images, beautiful, concrete, surprising images. And the voice, the voice has authority so that the reader sits up and listens. Try reading them aloud - the music of them entrances even when the meaning is not clear. Ultimately it is about death and how prescient is that considering Mr. Levis died unexpectedly in the middle of composing these poems. I was moved in a way that only the best A poet of images, beautiful, concrete, surprising images.
I was moved in a way that only the best poetry can. Jul 13, Nicola rated it it was amazing. Poet-friends kept recommending this book to me and now I can finally understand why.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. These poems are working on so many levels. I was trying to read them as an example of narrative for an Intro to Poetry class I'm teaching next semester and love the way they show how expanded web-like luminous narrative and worlds! This book taught me more about how to write about violence than so many other books with that explicit intent.
Mar 29, Hannah Baker-Siroty rated it it was amazing Shelves: In my top 5 books of poetry, no question. Larry Levis is a brilliant poet and I am grateful for this book.
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He makes the long poem seem short, and for that alone his is a poetic genius Jan 31, Kate Rosenberg rated it it was amazing Shelves: I posthumously adore you. These poems are like houses of cards. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Elegy Pitt Poetry Series. Don't Call Us Dead: Here's how restrictions apply. Pitt Poetry Series Paperback: University of Pittsburgh Press; 1 edition March 31, Language: Don't have a Kindle?
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Please try again later. This question drives the collection, just as Levis drives through his youth probably on a tractor , past his present, and dwindles, dawdles, dragging his feet toward death, his own or his father's -- or perhaps even both. Levis' line is simple without being simplistic, with few words within the lines and a general narrative weaving through the poems as whole entities -- reminding me, in the best way, of country music.
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Rooted in the real and the rural, the poetry really packs a punch with the sudden materialization of strangeness or abstraction: These two abstractions are, content-wise, what Levis appears to be most interested in, presenting them as a matter of fact, no two ways about it. His poetry is so rooted in the personal experience that it becomes a sort of universal understanding; we experience the world as he once did and as he hopes to understand it in the present. Because, Levis says, death. A strong contender for the best book I've ever read - poetry or otherwise.
It's hard for me to do this one justice in a paragraph; all I can say is that Winter Stars doesn't contain a single bad poem, and its most memorable lines get stuck in my head like a pop song. A really, really, heartbreaking pop song. Since the first time I read this book, I've turned to it more times than I can count. But also on those days you wouldn't trade for anything - the days when inspiration and energy seem to pulse through your body, and you've never been surer of the people and things you love - Winter Stars has been by my side on those days, too.
Levis has an incredible gift for articulating many of the struggles and abstractions of life in concrete images and beautifully written lines, and the result is often deeply moving. I was really shocked to find out what a talented author Levis was. He's really a HUGE talent, even if you really don't care for poetry. In Winter Stars, Larry Levis covers death, relationships and his life with a poetic power that is rarely found in modern poetry. These poems include reflections on the poet's childhood, elegies to his father, and observations on the human condition.
The latter is a masterpiece. A must have for anyone studying late twentieth century poetry. Larry Levis has done something old and new: Each poem is able to be read as its own, individual piece, and yet, when placed together with the collection acts a chapter to a personal life story.
One walks away from winter starts with a more realized understanding of poetry and the poets behind it, thanks to thematic motifs that fall throughout like snowflakes and from the singular narrative voice. One of the most prevailing motifs throughout Larry Levis's poetry collection, Winter Stars, is the theme of time - in particular youth, age, and how the two intersect. For example, his first poem, The Poet at Seventeen, speaks in a narrative tongue, describing scenes more so than playing with more formal elements, such as sounds. In addition, his first section, aptly titled Winter Stars, explores age in a variety of ways - through looking at the poet as a young person, looking at the past in particular youth with the gaze of the unavoidable.
The narrator seems to suggest that everything that happened was destined to happen and to try and change fate adds up to nothing. Winter Stars deals with old age, in particular with stars as signifiers of memory - the most interesting part about the title Winter Stars, which appears three times - as name of the book, name of a sub section of the book and the name of a poem within that subsection, is the concept of Night and Winter as simultaneously the beginning and ending of things: Dawn breaks from night, and starts a new year in January, bringing the spring and the youth of new life with it.
However, winter and night also end the season with the end of December and the first light of stars commencing the end of the day. Often, he seems to use the three stages of man in his poems: The work of this poet, the way it is set in this book, is hard not to take as a consistent narrative, with a consistent narrator. Indeed, many of his poems reflect not only personal seeming stories, but some, such as Family Romance, give the authors name as the speaker's name directly.