Post by leiade116 on May 30, 2013 20:00:31 GMT -5
Philip Levine was born in industrial Detroit during the Great Depression. Raised solely by his immigrant Jewish mother, he faced anti-Semitism during his childhood. By the age of fourteen Levine had begun working in factories. Working in a number of monotonous jobs including the night shift at a Chevrolet factory, Levine fought against type and read and wrote poems in his time away from the tedium of factory work. These work experiences Levine informed every aspect of his poetry and indeed his life.
In his early twenties Levine made his way to one of the finest writing programs in the country, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, studying under the tutelage of none other than poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman. Eventually Levine made his way to California where he was awarded a writing fellowship at Stanford University. Levine taught for many years at California State University and served as Distinguished Poet in Residence at New York University. A winner of the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics Circle Award, two Guggenheim fellowships, and the National Book award, Levine was named the 18th US Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2011.
Philip Levine’s poetry was a search for joy and meaning in his life. He speaks to this when he commented in an interview:
“I believe even that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believe that if I could understand my life-or at least the part my work played in it- I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life.”
Poetry allowed him to give meaning to his work and essentially his life which was otherwise very unfulfilling and meaningless.
Just as poetry elevated Levine from the bleak realities of his life in the factory, he wishes the same for “children, just born” already having gone through “the hardest day of their lives.” Levine wants to recapture the lost innocence from the minimum wage job of an assembly line worker. He reminds us there is beauty outside the “barb-wired,” fenced-in confines of industrial work. Levine also pays attention to those who are “19 years old and going nowhere” because they are stuck in a low-paying job just to put food on the table for their families. He is aware of the hardships of every-day life of the working-class man and his poetry attempts to bring people beyond these hardships into the deeper meaning of life.
The beauty in Levine’s work is that there is a strong message in its simplicity. While the acknowledgement of the working-class man is strong, Levine conveys to his audience that doing something like hugging one’s brother, “something so simple, so obvious,” is what is truly important in this world, and that is “what work is,” not the physical labor in a factory job. He communicates on a profound emotional level through his work which is what makes him such an influential and admirable poet.
Without further ado, it is my honor to introduce the Westfield High School 2013 Visiting Poet Philip Leivine.
In his early twenties Levine made his way to one of the finest writing programs in the country, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, studying under the tutelage of none other than poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman. Eventually Levine made his way to California where he was awarded a writing fellowship at Stanford University. Levine taught for many years at California State University and served as Distinguished Poet in Residence at New York University. A winner of the Pulitzer, the National Book Critics Circle Award, two Guggenheim fellowships, and the National Book award, Levine was named the 18th US Poet Laureate by the Library of Congress in 2011.
Philip Levine’s poetry was a search for joy and meaning in his life. He speaks to this when he commented in an interview:
“I believe even that if I could transform my experience into poetry I would give it the value and dignity it did not begin to possess on its own. I thought too that if I could write about it I could come to understand it; I believe that if I could understand my life-or at least the part my work played in it- I could embrace it with some degree of joy, an element conspicuously missing from my life.”
Poetry allowed him to give meaning to his work and essentially his life which was otherwise very unfulfilling and meaningless.
Just as poetry elevated Levine from the bleak realities of his life in the factory, he wishes the same for “children, just born” already having gone through “the hardest day of their lives.” Levine wants to recapture the lost innocence from the minimum wage job of an assembly line worker. He reminds us there is beauty outside the “barb-wired,” fenced-in confines of industrial work. Levine also pays attention to those who are “19 years old and going nowhere” because they are stuck in a low-paying job just to put food on the table for their families. He is aware of the hardships of every-day life of the working-class man and his poetry attempts to bring people beyond these hardships into the deeper meaning of life.
The beauty in Levine’s work is that there is a strong message in its simplicity. While the acknowledgement of the working-class man is strong, Levine conveys to his audience that doing something like hugging one’s brother, “something so simple, so obvious,” is what is truly important in this world, and that is “what work is,” not the physical labor in a factory job. He communicates on a profound emotional level through his work which is what makes him such an influential and admirable poet.
Without further ado, it is my honor to introduce the Westfield High School 2013 Visiting Poet Philip Leivine.