Philip Levine



Philip Levine (b. January 10, 1928, Detroit, Michigan) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet. He taught for many years at California State University, Fresno. He was the Distinguished Poet in Residence for the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

Life and work
Levine grew up in industrial Detroit. The familial, social, and economic world of 20th century Detroit is one of the major subjects of his life's work. His portraits of working class Americans and his continuous examination of his Jewish immigrant inheritance (both based on real life and described through fictional characters) has left a testimony of mid-20th century American life. Growing up, Levine faced the anti-Semitism embodied by a local celebrity, the pro-Hitler radio priest Father Coughlin.

Levine began to write poetry while he was going to night school at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit and working days at one of that city's car manufacturing plants. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he studied with Robert Lowell and John Berryman.

Levine's working experience lent his poetry a profound skepticism in regard to conventional American ideals. In his first two books, On the Edge (1963) and Not This Pig (1968), the poetry dwells on those who suddenly become aware they are trapped in some murderous processes not of their own making. In 1968, Levine signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

In his first two books, Levine was somewhat traditional in form and relatively constrained in expression. Beginning with They Feed They Lion, Levine's poems are typically free-verse monologues tending toward trimeter or tetrameter. The music of Levine's poetry depends on tension between his line-breaks and his syntax. The title poem of Levine's book 1933 (1974) is an example of the cascade of clauses and phrases one finds in his poetry. Other collections include the National Book Award-winning What Work Is, A Walk with Tom Jefferson, and in his New Selected Poems.

On November 29, 2007 a tribute was held in New York City in anticipation of Levine's 80th birthday. Among those celebrating Levine's career by reading Levine's work were Yusef Komunyakaa, Galway Kinnell, E. L. Doctorow, Charles Wright, Jean Valentine, and Sharon Olds. Levine himself read several new and interesting poems. He thanked his students and asked them to refrain from asking for any more letters of recommendation.

Awards

 * 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry - The Simple Truth"
 * 1991 National Book Award - What Work Is
 * 1979 National Book Critics Circle Award Ashes: Poems New and Old
 * 1979 American Book Award for Poetry - Ashes: Poems New and Old
 * 1979 National Book Critics Circle Award - 7 Years from Somewhere
 * 1975 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize "The Names of the Lost"
 * 1987 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
 * Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize from Poetry
 * Frank O'Hara Prize
 * Two Guggenheim Foundation fellowships

Poetry collections

 * News of the World, Random House, Inc., 2009, ISBN 9780307272232
 * Breath Knopf, 2004, ISBN 9781400042913; reprint, Random House, Inc., 2006, ISBN 9780375710780
 * The Mercy, Random House, Inc., 1999, ISBN 9780375701351
 * Unselected Poems, Greenhouse Review Press, 1997, ISBN 9780965523905
 * The Simple Truth, Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, ISBN 9780679435808; Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, ISBN 9780679765844
 * What Work Is, Knopf, 1992, ISBN 9780679740582
 * New Selected Poems, Knopf, 1991, ISBN 9780679401650
 * A Walk With Tom Jefferson, A.A. Knopf, 1988, ISBN 9780394570389
 * Sweet Will, Atheneum, 1985, ISBN 9780689115851
 * Selected Poems, Atheneum, 1984, ISBN 9780689114564
 * One for the Rose, Atheneum, 1981, ISBN 9780689112232
 * 7 Years From Somewhere, Atheneum, 1979, ISBN 9780689109744
 * Ashes: Poems New and Old, Atheneum, 1979, ISBN 9780689109751
 * The Names of the Lost, Atheneum, 1976
 * 1933, Atheneum, 1974, ISBN 9780689105869
 * They Feed They Lion, Atheneum, 1972
 * Red Dust (1971)
 * Pili's Wall, Unicorn Press, 1971; Unicorn Press, 1980
 * Not This Pig, Wesleyan University Press, 1968, ISBN 9780819520388; Wesleyan University Press, 1982, ISBN 9780819510389
 * On the Edge (1963)

Essays

 * The Bread of Time (1994)

Translations

 * Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes, edited and translated with Ada Long (1984)
 * Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines, edited and translated With Ernesto Trejo (1979)

Interviews

 * Don't Ask, University of Michigan Press, 1981, ISBN 9780472063277