Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
Denise Levertovwas a British-born American poet...
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth24 October 1923
encouragement imagination affliction
Affliction is more apt to suffocate the imagination than to stimulate it.
walking knows
But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.
consistent mystery poetry theme
Acknowledgement, and celebration, of mystery probably constitutes the most consistent theme of my poetry.
bell blow heard rang saying self singing
The day's blow rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened, and what I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can
sea shining world
Through the hollow globe, a ring of frayed rusty scrapiron, is it the sea that shines? Is it a road at the world's edge?
money nice wife
Don't eat those nice green dollars your wife gives you for breakfast.
happiness breathing quiet
So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.
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.
sparks redemption speech
Each part of speech a spark awaiting redemption, each a virtue, a power in abeyance....
mother hypocrite men
Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!
heart thinking blue
blue bead on the wick, there's that in me that burns and chills, blackening my heart with its soot, I think sometimes not Apollo heard me but a different god.
loss admitting disaster
We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
women home eagles
I'll dig in into my days, having come here to live, not to visit. Grey is the price of neighboring with eagles, of knowing a mountain's vast presence, seen or unseen.
splits fractions
Images split the truth in fractions.