What Work Is Philip Levine Pdf
A Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He is appointed to serve as the Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011–2012.BiographyPhilip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit, the second of three sons and the first of identical twins of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Harry Levine, owned a used auto parts business, his mother, Esther Priscol (Prisckulnick) Levine, was a bookseller.
When Levine was five years old, his father died. Growing up, he faced the.to add this poet to your My Favorite Poets. ( 12:40:00 AM)On What Work IsPhilip Levine's poetry evokes the vibrant durability and continuity of things. It is no accident that the seemingly unbreakable thistle, which survives California's harsh summers, is his 'flower.' At least he has celebrated it in such a way throughout his books. Possibly he has done so because its work is to survive, and it does.
The way we must, impassively committed surviving, standing up though the harsh heat, the inevitable storms. Levine's poem, 'What Work Is, ' should be read in this context. To work is to survive, and the details of how difficult or debased work can be are evoked in the title poem and the poem 'Growth' (each the book What Work Is).
Levine was the man, he suffered, he was there. But the symbolic importance of work operates as an emblem of the soul as well, since not knowing how to love, Levine writes, is to not 'know what work is.'
We may seem to be closer here to the meaning of work as it occurs in the tragedies, desolations, and betrayals of the remarkable book of poems Hard Labor by the Italian poet Cesare Pavese than to the Whitman of 'A Song of Occupations. But the paradox that Whitman extols, where 'Objects gross and the unseen soul are one' are filtered through a rich groove into Levine's book in the poem 'Soloing.' In the poem his mother tells him 'she dreamed/ of John Coltrane, 'a young Trane/ playing his music with such joy/ and contained energy and rage/ she could not hold back her tears/.' Levine sees the dream visitation as a Dream Vision, a gift of music from the great musician so lasting in the force of his passion that he is retained within, and resurfaces out of, the 'unseen' after death in the mother's dream. And here the poet, almost Dante-like, coming into the smogged-over sea-dead L.A.
Basin simultaneously presents the dignified but saddened alone-ness of the mother with the mother who is still a source of sustenance, whose work as a mother is not over. There is then a placental quality to the poem since the mother's dream itself was the substance that fed the poet-son's language. The remarkable quality, especially of Levine's later poems, is this capacity for lucidly evoking the subtleties of how the inner and outer worlds of experience inter-relate. He could also be saying that sometimes you have to go through hell, and that it is worth going through hell, to receive a gift from the mother—herself a symbol of what primarily sustains and devours all.
The Two Philip Levine
But the possibly deeper comical or mystical intent is incidental. At the foundation of Levine's poetry is the durability that arises out of integrity: he is committed to finishing the 'job, ' knowing there are all the reasons in the world to hesitate, but that if he did quit, if he were to ever 'have turned back, ' he would have 'lost the music.' One of Levine’s best books.dorenrobbins.com. An Abandoned Factory, DetroitThe gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,An iron authority against the snow,And this grey monument to common senseResists the weather.
Fears of idle hands,Of protest, men in league, and of the slowCorrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.Beyond, through broken windows one can seeWhere the great presses paused between their strokesAnd thus remain, in air suspended, caughtIn the sure margin of eternity.The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokesWhich movement blurred, the struts inertia fought.
These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.Written by Via RomanoIn this poem, Levine reflects on the death of his mother. He describes burying her ashes in a garden with a lilac plant and a rose bush, and watching them grow out of his mother's remains.
Baixar cd samba de gafieira. He reflects on the things that remain and his own memories, and how the death of his mother changes them.Detroit, TomorrowIn this poem, Levine describes how some of the violence that occurs in Detroit effects people on a personal level. He focuses this poem on the mother of a boy who has killed someone and follows the woman through her daily routine while she mourns her son and his actions.The Gatekeeper's Children'The Gatekeeper's Children' begins with a description of a house owned by a rich family. Levine describes the house in vivid colorful detail before turning the poem to focus on the children of the family playing in the backyard.
He describes them and imagines the things they have unknowingly agreed to by growing up how they are in their house.Our Valley'Our Valley' is a more abstract description of a specific, mountainous area of land described by an unnamed narrator. The narrator describes how hot the land is and how far it is from the ocean, though he mentions the air smells of salt once in a while. He then goes on to personify the mountains and describe them as all-knowing. The poem takes a more reverent tone from here out, with the narrator reminding his addressee that the land does not belong to them, and encouraging them to worship it. Update this section!You can help us out by revising, improving and updatingthis section.After you claim a section you’ll have 24 hours to send in a draft. An editorwill review the submission and either publish your submission or provide feedback.How To Cite in MLA Format Romano, Via. 'Philip Levine: Poetry Summary'.
GradeSaver, 16 May 2018 Web.