Exploring Denise Levertovs Poetic Mastery in Selected Poems

Abstract

Student’s NameProfessor’s NameInstitutionDate of submission Book Review: Selected Poems Denise Levertov is a renowned poet writer who is known to have brought American literature into the mainstream of American life. She was born in London in 1923. As child, Levertov participated in several literature writing that saw become a guru poetic writer at the first half of the 20th century. She has won many awards from her poetic work making her one of the most important American poets of the time. She died in 1997 at the age of 84 years. Her shrewdness in poetry writing will forever linger in many minds in centuries to come. This paper explores Levertov work from the book, Selected Poems. The book is culled from a correction of many poetry books that she wrote throughout her life. In the review, the paper will pay attention to the stylistic devices, themes, and features employed in the book. What I particularly liked about the book is its ability to have employed a combination of various instances that describes Levertov life experience. From just reading the book one becomes conversant with how the author spent her life in almost six decades. When she was a young girl she spent most of her time with her mother who educated her from home. It is during this time that Levertov realizes her potential in poetic writing. She interacts with other authors such as Williams Carlos Williams and Charles Olson who become her mentors. Her writing moments are marked by a lot of consultations from these mentors to emerge as among the best poem writers in America. From the book we realize that, Levertov was not born in America, she moved there from London while in the pursuit to follow her dreams and to be engaged to an American husband who once spend his life in America. Themes There is an adorable use of many themes in Levertov’s poetry work. According to the book, Selected Poems, Levertov has employed several themes to communicate and present his thoughts to the reader. Most of the themes in the book explore or rather interprets the various encounters in her life. On the same, some themes were meant to bring to the attention of the reader, the various believes that people hold in many societies. Themes presented by Levertov, are also highly educative, involving and thrilling. The following are some of the various themes presented in the book. Religion, since she was young, Levertov was an active member of the church. It was facilitated by the fact that her parents were firm spiritual believers. Her father was a popular priest in London while her mother spent most of her time in the church. It was therefore very hard for Levertov to grow in such a way that she was not raised in church. As a result, her poetry incorporates a lot of religious activities that one can attribute to her religious background. The best of Levertov poetry work are hymns, invocations, prayers, and incantations. The mentioned type of poems incorporates a profound seriousness that aims at spreading religion to readers. In this case, these poems have shunned levity and attempt to exalt anything else than God. In fact, there are several mentions of the word God in the poems confirming that they are inclined towards recognizing God as a supernatural power. Mythical; these poems have to do a lot with believes and myths. Apart from several mentioning of God in the poems, confirming that Levertov completely believed in Him, several other poems narrow down to societal settings to show that, people holds to a lot of myths. For Levertov, the main goal of poetry was to present the myth of the natural landscape and the strangeness of the familiar world. She shows instances to explain how people believed in the origin of language they use to communicate with each other. Literal devices Lack of literal devices in writing is one of the worst sin an author can commit. Such features bring in taste to writing while still conforming to the standard rules required in writing. Literal devices are important in a number of factors, to start with, they helps a reader in categorizing the content in the writing. According to the stylistic devices/literal devices applied in many writing, a reader can be in a position to categorize it as a poem, narrative, a speech or any other form of writing. Levertov has clearly adhered to this requirement. She has employed significant stylistic devices in her writing in accordance to...