New Selected Poems [Paperback]

Philip Levine (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Issued simultaneously with his newest book, What Work Is ( LJ 5/1/91), this selection contains all the poems Levine himself chose for inclusion in his earlier Selected Poems ( LJ 6/15/84), plus 15 new poems. This is a monumental work that somehow remains wonderfully accessible, largely because Levine has chosen pieces carefully, favoring shorter works and poems that address his staple themes of family (like "Uncle" and "My Son and I") and childhood ("Coming Home"). Many of the poems are powerfully imagistic, with telling one-word titles like "Noon," "Salami," "Milkweed," "Breath," "Starlight," "Snow," and "Roofs." Also included are familiar anthology pieces like "The Horse" and "They Feed the Lion." Levine is simply one of the best poets working in America today, a winner of the American Book Award, the Marshall Award, and the Lilly Poetry Prize. New Selected Poems and What Work Is constitute a virtually complete record of his work and are thus highly recommended for all poetry collections, large or small.
- Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

And Owl
And The Falcon Came
And The Pheonix Has Come
Apple Dumps
Apple Tragedy
At The Bottom Of The Arctic Ocean
A Bang - A Burning
Bayonet Charge
Birth Of Rainbow
The Black Beast
Boom
Bowled Over
Bride And Groom Lie Hidden For Three Days
The Bull Moses
Cadenza
Calves Harshly Parted From Their Mamas
Cat And Mouse
A Childish Prank
Cleopatra To The Asp
Coming Down Through Somerset
The Contender
Couples Under Cover
A Cranefly In September
Crow Hill
Crow's First Lesson
Crow's Last Stand
Curlews In April
Curlews Lift
Dawn's Rose
Dead Farms, Dead Leaves
Deaf School
Do Not Pick Up The Telephone
The Dove Came
Eagle
Earth-numb
Egg-head
Emily Bronte
Esther's Tomcat
Examination At The Womb-door
The Executioner
Fallgrief's Girlfriends
Famour Poet
February 17th
Fern
Fire-eater
Football At Slack
For Billy Holt
The Formal Auctioneer
Fourth Of July
Full Moon And Little Frieda
Gaudette, Sels.
Ghost-crabs
Gnat-psalm
A God
Gog
Goose
The Grass-blade Is Not Without
The Green Wolf
The Harvest Moon
Hawk Roosting
Heptonstall
Heptonstall Cemetery
Heptonstall Old Church
Her Husband
A Horrible Religious Error
The Horses
The Howling Of Wolves
I Know Well
I See The Oak's Bridge
It Is All
The Jaguar
The Knight
Kreutzer Sonata
Life Is Trying To Be Life
Littleblood
The Lovepet
Lovesong
The Man Seeking Experience Enquires His Way Of Drop Of Water
A March Calf
The Martyrdom Of Bishop Farrar
Mayday On Holderness
Meeting
Moors
A Motorbike
Mountains
New Moon In January
Night Arrival Of Sea Trout
Notes For A Little Play
November
Now You Have To Push
October Dawn
An October Salmon
Once I Said Lightly
An Otter
Out
Owl's Song
Pibroch
Pike
A Primrose Petal's Edge
Prometheus On His Crag: 10
Prometheus On His Crag: 20
Prometheus On His Crag: 9
Prospero And Sycorax
Ravens
Relic
The Retired Colonel
The Risen
Rock Has Not Learned
Roe Deer
Root, Stem, Leaf
Salmon Eggs
Scapegoats And Rabies
Second Glance At A Jaguar
Seven Dungeon Songs: 2
Seven Dungeon Songs: 4
Seven Dungeon Songs: 5
Seven Dungeon Songs: 7
Sheep
Six Young Men
Skylarks
Snowdrop
Soliloquy
Sometimes It Comes
Song
The Song
Song Of A Rat: 1. The Rat's Dance
Speech Out Of Shadow
Stations
Stealing Trout On A May Morning
Still Life
The Stone
Strawberry Hill
Sunstroke
The Swallow - Rebuilding
The Swift Comes The Swift
Swifts
That Moment
That Morning
Theology
This Is The Maneater's Skill
Thistles
The Thought-fox
Thrushes
Tiger Psalm
Tractor
Tv Off
Two Eskimo Songs: 2: How Water Began To Play
View Of A Pig
The Virgin Knight
Wadsworth Moor
The Warriors Of The North
Waving Goodbye
When Men Got To The Summit
Widdop
The Wild Duck
Wilfred Owen's Photographs
Wind
A Wind Flashes The Grass
Witches
Wodwo
A Woman Unconscious
You Hated Spain
Your Tree - Your Oak
The Mad Scene
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf (April 21, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679740562
• ISBN-13: 978-0679740568
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.9 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic American poetry collection, January 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: New Selected Poems (Paperback)

Philip Levine¹s Collected Works is an amazing biography of a life. Spanning a so-far-incomplete life, we can follow Levine¹s progress of maturation. While the beginning poems are strong, it is the middle and end pieces that were the most startling, poems about the working class and later his son. His ability to mix narration and the more typical elements of poetry is extraordinary. Compare the first and last sentences of ³One For The Rose²: ³Three weeks ago I went back / to the same street corner where / 27 years before I took a bus for Akron, / Ohio, but now there was only a blank space / with a few concrete building blocks / scattered among the beer cans², ³Instead I was born / in the wrong year and in the wrong place, / and I made my way so slowly and badly / that I remember every single turn, / and each one smells like an overblown rose, / yellow, American, beautiful, and true.² Levine writes American poetry in the American diction better than anyone since Whitman or Sandburg. His language is conservative and seems simple at first, but when the poem blossoms we are all the more surprised and excited because of it. This book is a gem to read and contains a story, making it as hard to put down as your favorite novel.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Levine A True Master, June 9, 2000

By 

J. Newberry (Tifton, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Selected Poems (Paperback)

In my opinion, Philip Levine is perhaps the most honest poet writing in America today. As a master's candidate in an English department, I've endured much of the postmodern fluff that dominates modern poetry. In Levine's work, you won't find the typical introspective ramblings of the self-obsessed modern poet. Levine writes clearly and distinctly, with images that carry ideas. Levine doesn't resort to petty academic parlor tricks to describe the disappearence of self--check out "Silent in America" for a portrait of a man with a voice so powerful that he cannot even use it.

In *New and Selected Poems*, readers will find a real master craftsman at work. Along with artfully buried rhymes and off rhymes, Levine also experiments quite successfully with both meter and syllabic verse. The amazine thing, however, is that unless you really pay attention to the work, you miss these things. Levine hypnotizes with his ideas and phrasing and clear, sharp images.

Here are the voices of the lost; here are the voices of the damned. Levine rejects the postmodern destruction of self and has become a voice of the American poor in the Whitman tradition. As an epigraph in *New and Selected Poems* reads, "Vivas for those who have failed."

Levine has had a great influence on me and my work. Anyone writing poetry should check out Levine's work. I'd recommend _What Work Is_ also. In my opinion, it's his best book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A collection from the most honest poet around, April 26, 2005

By 

A. Woodley "A Stooge" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Selected Poems (Paperback)

Philip Levine is an amazing poet and this really is an amazing collection. I recently saw him do a reading and was so floored by the brutal honesty and anger of his poems. I am an 8th English teacher and have given my honors classes some of his poems, which they loved. Philip Levine works on so many levels and can be enjoyed by anyone. Must reads from this collection include: "You Can Have It," "They Feed They Lion," and "Animals are Passing from Our Lives."