In the Land of Shinar (For Further Study)

For Further Study

• Brooker, Jewel Spears, ed., Conversations with Denise Levertov, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.

  Despite some errors in its opening chronology. Jewel Spears Brooker has served Levertov readers and scholars well with this collection of interviews. They date from David Ossman’s interview in 1963 to Brooker’s own, in 1995, and find Levertov expressing quite a variety of concerns — artistic, political, spiritual, and environmental — all in her lively, generous idiom. A few interviews, such as the one conducted by Maureen Smith in 1973 for her Ph.D. dissertation, have not been published elsewhere and make a valuable contribution to Levertov scholarship.

• Gelpi, Albert, ed., Denise Levertov: Selected Criticism, Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1993.

  This collection of criticism and reviews represents discussions of Levertov’s work from her earliest volume, The Double Image (1946), to A Door in the Hive (1989). Editor Gelpi has organized the book into five parts — reviews, poetics, politics, gender, and religion — and has included a selected bibliography in the back to provide resources for further study. This volume is part of the “Under Discussion” series, which has a reputation for providing accessible, lucid criticism for students of contemporary poetry.

• Levertov, Denise, New and Selected Essays, New York: New Directions, 1992.

  Levertov selected the prose for this volume from some of her most important aesthetic statements, including her definition of “the poet in the world” and her description of the relationship between the journeys of art and faith. Also included are Levertov’s essays about William Carlos Williams, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Robert Duncan that provide insight into those who have influenced her. Other pieces underscore the depth of the interrelations she felt and practiced among poetry, politics, and love of nature, while still others reveal her close attention to poetic technique.

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

  This collection of new essays is the first study to look at Levertov’s completed career. While some of the essays offer reminiscence by poets and critics — including Robert Creeley and Paul Lacey — who knew Levertov well, the volume also presents a variety of critical approaches by such writers as Christopher MacGowan, Victoria Frenkel Harris, and Harry Marten. A broad range of topics includes sexuality and gender, spirituality, influences on her work, her reinvigoration of the lyric tradition, and her legacy as a teacher.