Condition Of The Spirit

by Buckley, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780910055925
• ISBN10: 0910055920
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-30
• Publisher: Eastern Washington Univ Pr

Summary

News of the sudden and untimely death of Larry Levis in 1996 left the world of contemporary American poetry stunned and dismayed. His work was of such depth and such amazing resonance, it was admired and studied by an entire generation of poets and readers, regardless of aesthetic, political, or cultural predispositions. Levis's poems crossed borders, broke down barriers, and invited a sharing of the strange, sweet loneliness of being that is the fundamental human lot. A Condition of the Spirit brings together reviews, essays, interviews, and meditations by more than forty American poets profoundly affected by Levis's life and work. It also contains twelve previously uncollected essays by Levis himself, making it a virtual handbook for the study of the poet's thinking on the craft of poetry and the craft of life. Contributors to the collection include Deborah Digges, Stephen Dunn, Nancy Eimers, Peter Everwine, Sandra Gilbert, Philip Levine, David St. John, Stephen Sandy, Dave Smith, Gerald Stern, Peter Stitt, Diane Wakoski, David Wojahn, Charles Wright, David Young, and Paul Zimmer.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
Christopher Buckley and Alexander Long
Eggshell	xv
Gerald Stern
I. SOME OF THE LIFE
Larry Levis	3	(6)
Philip Levine
Larry Levis and the First-Time, One Time, Irvine Manuscript Day	9	(2)
Charles Wright
Levis, Larry (Patrick)	11	(2)
Diane Wakoski
Larry Levis In Syracuse	13	(4)
Stephen Dunn
Gifts and Remembrances	17	(6)
B.H. Boston
What's Wrong With This Picture	23	(8)
Marcia Southwick
After the Obsession with Some Beloved Figure: An Interview with Larry Levis	31	(20)
Leslie Kelen
Turned Into Paper: A Memory of Larry Levis and Re-reading of "Sensationalism"	51	(6)
Kathy Fagan
Looking Up	57	(4)
Jim Zola
"Back Then" Reading the Poems of Larry Levis	61	(4)
Nancy Eimers
Larry Levis's "Spots of Time"	65	(4)
Gary Short
The Good Ship Larry	69	(6)
Gerald Costanzo
But We Have the Books	75	(4)
Ed Ochester
Elegy To Elegy	79	(8)
Doren Robbins
An Afterword	87	(4)
David St. John
Larry Levis	91	(4)
Peter Everwine
II. LARRY LEVIS ON POETRY
A Divinity In Its Fraying Fact	95	(10)
Larry Levis
Philip Levine	105	(8)
Larry Levis
Larry Levis & Walter Bargen: A Conversation	113	(20)
Walter Bargen
War as Parable and War as Fact: Herbert and Forche	133	(30)
Larry Levis
The Anatomy of Saturday Night	163	(2)
Larry Levis
Review of FourYoung Poets for New Letters	165	(6)
Larry Levis
Introduction to Kevin Hearle's, Each Thing We Know Is Changed Because We Know It	171	(6)
Larry Levis
Not Life So Proud To Be Life: Snodgrass, Rothenberg, Bell, and the Counter-Revolution	177	(30)
Larry Levis
Waiting For the End of the World: Snodgrass and The Fuhrer Bunker	207	(30)
Larry Levis
Two Letters to The Reaper	237	(4)
Larry Levis
Poems That Mean? Poems That Are?: Larry Levis at Warren Wilson College...January, 1993	241	(18)
Larry Levis
Roll Call:The Many Lives of Larry Levis	259	(6)
Robyn Selman
An Interview with Larry Levis	265	(20)
Michael White
III. RESPONSE TO THE WORK
Larry Levis: Johnny Dominguez, A Letter	285	(18)
Dave Smith
Elegy: Larry Levis-An Appreciation	303	(30)
Christopher Buckley
The Unweary Poet	333	(4)
Jack Anderson
from "Experienced Bards"	337	(4)
Stephen Sandy
The Condition of Grief	341	(12)
Derek McKown
Winter Stars	353	(2)
Publishers Weekly
Larry Levis's Translations of Kijma Hajime	355	(4)
Alexander Long
from "Three Mannerists"	359	(8)
Tony Whedon
from "Blessings and Rain"	367	(2)
Peter Stitt
The Lost Prose Poems of Larry Levis	369	(8)
Christopher Buckley
Black Freckles	377	(2)
Publishers Weekly
Image & History in the Poems of Larry Levis	379	(16)
Alexander Long
What Does It Mean, American? The Poetry of Larry Levis	395	(6)
Robert Dana
Heart In the Presence of Oblivion: Larry Levis's The Widening Spell of the Leaves	401	(4)
Sheila Bender
The Margin as Frontier: The Widening Spell of the Line	405	(8)
Ellen Smith
The Widening Spell of the Leaves	413	(2)
James Harms
Democratic Growth in "The Widening Spell of The Leaves"	415	(6)
Fred Dings
Beautiful Polarities	421	(6)
Nance Van Winckel
#10 Overlooked Poet, Larry Levis	427	(4)
Alan DeNiro
from "Survivalist Selves"	431	(8)
David Wojahn
Elegy	439	(2)
Jacqueline Osherow
Elegy	441	(4)
Eliot Wilson
The Poem as Johnny Dominguez	445	(4)
William Olsen
Elegy	449	(4)
Paul Zimmer
Suite: Larry Levis	453	(18)
J. Randy Marshall
Three Silent Diamonds	471	(14)
Eric Gudas
Flight and Arrival	485	(30)
Tony Hoagland
On The End of Romantic Authority in Larry Levis's Elegy	515	(16)
M.L. Williams
from "Where The Boys Are"	531	(6)
Sandra M. Gilbert
A Whitman Manque for the Twenty-first Century: On The Selected Levis	537	(6)
David Kirby
The Wish To Be Swept Clean: The Poetry of Larry Levis	543	(20)
D. W. Fenza
A Quiet Genius: The Selected Levis	563	(4)
M.L. Schuldt
To Recover The Poet: Larry Levis's Elegy, The Selected Levis, and The Gazer Within	567	(30)
Edward Byrne
Reading Larry Levis-The Selected Levis	597	(20)
David Young
IV. EPILOGUE:
Piazza Navona	617	(2)
Larry Levis
Index	619	(26)
Acknowledgments	645	(4)
Contributors	649