Denise Levertov

by

Lynn Domina

• LAST MODIFIED: 20 March 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199827251-0256

Introduction

Denise Levertov (b. 1923–d. 1997) is among the most influential 20th-century American poets. Born in England, she immigrated to the United States as a young woman in 1948, following her marriage to an American, Mitchell Goodman, in 1947. Though her commitment to poetry and the life of an artist emerged early—one frequently told story reveals that at the age of twelve she audaciously mailed some of her poems to T. S. Eliot—and though her first collection of poetry, The Double Image, was published in England, she actively cultivated a more Americanized voice in her work following her immigration. She became aligned with the Black Mountain school of poets, developing friendships with Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and especially Robert Duncan. She also engaged with specifically American political issues, particularly the war in Vietnam. She maintained her antiwar stance through the end of her life, and much of her poetry is overtly political, including work in her collections The Sorrow Dance (1967), Relearning the Alphabet (1970), and To Stay Alive (1971). Some of her political poetry garnered criticism from readers, critics, and other poets for being too self-righteous, too preachy, and too inattentive to poetic craft. Later in her career, her concerns expanded to include environmentalism. Following a gradual conversion to Catholicism, she explored specifically Christian ideas in subsequent collections, including Candles in Babylon (1982) and Oblique Prayers (1984). Toward the end of her life, her poems reveal considerations of mortality, including in, for example, the posthumously published This Great Unknowing: Last Poems (2000). Levertov also published prose, eventually gathered into four collections of essays, as well as translations of other poets. Her prose essays address issues of poetic craft, especially the use of the line and other aspects of form, as well as the social issues she also explores in her poetry. Over the course of her life, she published more than three dozen books, making her one of the most prolific poets of her or any generation, and new edited collections, such as The Life Around Us: Selected Poems on Nature (1997), The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes (1997), and Collected Poems (2013), have continued to be published.

General Overviews

Several articles and books provide introductions to Levertov’s life and work; these frequently discuss poetry and prose published throughout her career. Anderson 2008 and Dewey 1996 both summarize Levertov’s poetic concerns across several decades. Gish 1995 and Halpern 2015 consider Levertov within her literary and social context, including her generational position on the border between modernism and postmodernism and her emergence as a poet during the socially chaotic decade of the 1960s. Special issues of periodicals and edited collections of critical articles appeared during Levertov’s lifetime and subsequently. These collections, including Janssen 1992, Little and Paul 2000, and Young and Walker 2002, feature several individual articles that together analyze many aspects of Levertov’s writing. Marten 1988 and Wagner 1967 each provide introductions to Levertov’s earlier work and were fairly comprehensive at the time they were written.

• Anderson, Christopher Todd. “Denise Levertov.” In Twentieth-Century American Nature Poets. Edited by J. Scott Bryson and Roger Thompson, 214–222. Dictionary of Literary Biography 342. Detroit: Gale Cengage, 2008.

  Introductory biographical article. Emphasizes the relationships between Levertov’s concern for the nonhuman world and her political activism. Particularly useful for students. Available online by subscription.

• Dewey, Anne Day. “Denise Levertov.” In American Poets Since World War II: Fourth Series. Edited by Joseph Conte, 147–164. Dictionary of Literary Biography 165. Detroit: Gale Cengage, 1996.

  Introductory biographical article. Provides detailed discussion of Levertov’s relationships with other poets of her generation. Particularly useful for students.

• Gish, Nancy K. “Denise Levertov.” In American Poetry: The Modernist Ideal. Edited by Clive Bloom and Brian Docherty, 253–270. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.

  Positions Levertov as an heir to modernism, linking the goals of modernism to American democratic ideals. Links relationships of form and poetic structure to a modernist agenda and a new understanding of poetic voice. Emphasizes literary context.

• Halpern, Nick. “The Uses of Authenticity: Four Sixties Poets.” In The Cambridge History of American Poetry. Edited by Alfred Bendixon and Stephen Burt, 869–893. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

  Discusses Levertov in the context of three other prominent American poets—Adrienne Rich, James Wright, and Robert Duncan—from the mid-twentieth century during the decade when all four poets experienced shifts in their aesthetics. Foregrounds the idea of authenticity as an influence on poetics. Useful article for literary context of Levertov’s earlier work.

• Janssen, Ronald R., ed. Special Issue: Denise Levertov Issue. Twentieth Century Literature 38.3 (Fall 1992).

  Academic journal issue containing several articles on Levertov. Articles range in tone and style, from comparatively informal descriptions of collaboration with Levertov to more complex theoretical analyses of her work.

• Little, Anne Colclough, and Susie Paul, eds. Denise Levertov: New Perspectives. West Cornwall, CT: Locust Hill Press, 2000.

  Collection of critical essays, personal reminiscences, and poems intended as a “tribute” (p. xx) to Levertov. Wide-ranging contributions, original to this volume, move from the biographical to more theoretical approaches. Articles focus frequently on Levertov’s lyricism as well as on thematic concerns, including gender and sexuality, spirituality, visual and other arts, and education.

• Marten, Harry. Understanding Denise Levertov. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988.

  Overview of Levertov’s work, organized chronologically. Accessible writing makes it a good introductory volume for students.

• Wagner, Linda W. Denise Levertov. New York: Twain, 1967.

  Early book-length consideration of the first two decades of Levertov’s published work. Primary focus is on elements of poetic craft. Though dated, it provides an accessible introduction for students and reveals why critics became interested in her early work.

• Young, David, and David Walker, eds. “Denise Levertov: A Field Symposium.” Field: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics 67 (Fall 2002): 9–45.

  Special section of this journal containing several brief appreciative articles on Levertov’s work, often written by other poets. Good introduction to Levertov’s range. Generally free of theoretical jargon.