Oblique Prayers
Over the years, Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation, while yet speaking with the familiar voice of "the poet in the world."
Oblique prayers
Oblique Prayers
Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation. Oblique Prayers - published with her first UK Selected Poems - shows her poetry working towards a mature philosophy in harmony with public activism and private reflection. The book also includes her translations of Jean Joubert.
Oblique Prayers: Poetry
Over the years, Denise Levertov's poetry has moved ever more deeply into the realm of meditation, while yet speaking with the familiar voice of "the poet in the world." Oblique Prayers is arranged in four thematic sections that, taken together, work toward a mature philosophy in equal harmony with public activism and private reflection. A personal mood links the poems of “Decipherings.” In “Prisoners," the poet addresses the continuing horrors of our dark time: genocide, imperialism, impending nuclear holocaust––human degradation in brutal political guise. Levertov is an accomplished translator. With "Fourteen Poems by Jean Joubert," she introduces English-speaking readers to a contemporary French poet whose work is remarkably akin to her own. "Of God and of the Gods," the final section of the book, is informed by a transcendent lyricism that can equate in a breath "a day of spring, a needle's eye."
This Great Unknowing
When Denise Levertov died on December 20, 1997, she left behind forty finished poems, which now form her last collection, This Great Unknowing.