Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertovwas a British-born American poet...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 October 1923
pain white knowing
Death and pain dominate this world, for though many are cured, they leave still weak, still tremulous, still knowing mortality has whispered to them; have seen in the folding of white bedspreads according to rule the starched pleats of a shroud.
prayer spring flames
At Delphi I prayed to Apollo that he maintain in me the flame of the poem and I drank of the brackish spring there....
flower light gold
slowly the pale dew-beads of light lapped up from flowers can thicken, darken to gold: honey of the human.
hair honey dropping
Beespittle, droppings, hairs of beefur: all become honey. Virulent micro-organisms cannot survive in honey.
happiness breathing quiet
So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.
time water breathe
We must breathe time as fishes breathe water.
imagination mediocrity capacity
Mediocrity is perhaps due not so much to lack of imagination as to lack of faith in the imagination, lack of the capacity for this abandon.
war night saying-nothing
our nerve filaments twitch with its presence day and night, nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying, nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.
taken light poetry
We have the words in our pockets, obscure directions. The old ones have taken away the light of their presence....
white fog black
The last cobwebs of fog in the black firtrees are flakes of white ash in the world's hearth.
world taste enough
The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.
art artist born
The artist must create himself or be born again.
lying found repose
I like to find what's not found at once, but lies within something of another nature, in repose, distinct.
artistic-life artistic process
It is fatal to one's artistic life to talk about something this is in process.