DENISE LEVERTOV ANALYSIS

October 24, 1923

December 20, 1997
By Diana Velarde
 Biography
- Poet and activist Denise Levertov was born on October 24, 1923, in Ilford,
England.
- She was homeschooled by her parents.
- Around the age of 5, Levertov expressed an interest in becoming a writer.
- During World War II, Levertov worked as a nurse in London but she also
kept writing.
- She married American writer Mitchell Goodman in 1947. The couple moved
to the United States the following year, and welcomed a son, Nikola, in
1949.
- She and her husband divorced.
- Levertov died on December 20, 1997, at the age of 74, in a Seattle,
Washington, hospital. According to The New York Times, her death was
caused by complications of lymphoma.
 Interesting Facts
- Her work embraces a wide variety of genres and themes, including
nature lyrics, love poems, protest poetry, and poetry inspired by her
faith in God.

- She was outspoken in her opposition to the Vietnam War, and helped
form the Artists and Writers Protest Against the War in Vietnam.

- Levertov also worked as a professor at many colleges, including Tufts

University and Stanford University.
 Poem 1: “What Were They Like?”
Did the people of Viet Nam
use lanterns of stone?
Did they hold ceremonies
to reverence the opening of buds?
Were they inclined to quiet laughter?
Did they use bone and ivory,
jade and silver, for ornament?
Had they an epic poem?
Did they distinguish between speech and singing?

Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.

It is not remembered whether in gardens
stone gardens illumined pleasant ways.
Perhaps they gathered once to delight in blossom,
but after their children were killed
there were no more buds.
 “What Were They Like?”
Sir, laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.
A dream ago, perhaps. Ornament is for joy.
All the bones were charred.
it is not remembered. Remember,
most were peasants; their life
was in rice and bamboo.
When peaceful clouds were reflected in the paddies
and the water buffalo stepped surely along terraces,
maybe fathers told their sons old tales.
When bombs smashed those mirrors
there was time only to scream.
There is an echo yet
of their speech which was like a song.
It was reported their singing resembled
the flight of moths in moonlight.
Who can say? It is silent now.
 MEANING OF THE POEM “What Were They Like?”
The poem What Were They Like? has really impressed me with its theme, style and presentation.
Though there are many other war-related poems, the way, the poet has presented it in present
and past tense, it really makes use think how tragic and disastrous the aftermaths of the war has
been. The poem makes the best representation of the sorry state of the poor, simple and peasants
Vietnamese who lived in harmony with nature, but are now nowhere to be seen. All their folklore
and ceremonies have been completely smashed by the American army.

STYLE OF THE POEM

Levertov seems never to have had to shake loose from an academic style of extreme ellipses and
literary allusion, the self-conscious obscurity that the Provencal poets called 'closed.
POETRY GROUP
First published in The Sorrow Dance book in 1967, was written as a protest poem against the USA
and its involvement in Vietnam.
 “What
" Were They Like?”
Examples of poetics devises
- Metaphor:
A metaphor puts an object or concept in a more clear perspective, provides imagery and creates an analogy to give
deeper understanding to a thing, a story, a message or a concept.
When the white fog burns off,
the abyss of everlasting light
Poem 2: “THE DEPTHS”
is revealed. The last cobwebs
of fog in the
black fir trees are flakes
of white ash in the world's hearth.

Cold of the sea is counterpart

to this great fire. Plunging
out of the burning cold of ocean
we enter an ocean of intense
noon. Sacred salt
sparkles on our bodies.

After mist has wrapped us again

in fine wool, may the taste of salt
recall to us the great depths about us.
 “THE DEPTHS”
MEANING OF THE POEM
Express how multi-layered life can be.
At some points, in fact, it is hard to discern what the good and bad are within the poem’s situations.
To Levertov, it seems, life is neither primarily filled with good or bad, but its “depths” are still worth
“tasting”.
The words good or bad, light or dark, and hot and cold may be present in a meaningful life, provided
there is moderation or balance.

STYLE OF THE POEM

Lyric

POETRY GROUP
Published in The Sorrow Dance book in 1967.
 “THE DEPTHS”
Examples of poetics devises
- Metaphor:
The Depths by Denise Levertov is a three-stanza work that uses contradictions and metaphor
to express how life can change.
THANKS !