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Some poets spend time with the language and know its foundations, its rhythms and its gifts of color and sense, and in the act of writing a poem, like a stone mason who works each stone, put words where they belong, a sculpted whole that can endure the blowing winds of fads and time. Steve Levine is one of those. In the video below he reads old and new poems. Enjoy.
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Here are a few of the poems Steve Levine reads in the video.
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Wingding
I didn’t really suggest we call our
monthly meetings wingdings
just simply said I’d written the word
(which had come to me reeling
straight out of the proverbial blue)
in my calendar. Even so, Cliff
was dead set against it. Bob cracked
up. Ed defined it — wild lively
lavish party. Barbara remained mum.
Greg was absent (five-hour opera).
And Maggie, maybe amused, expressed
no serious objection at all
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The Poet Who Set His Hat on Fire
O quizzical
quasi-
philosophical
utterer
of enigmas
and other
anodyne ephemera
it seems
you’ve leaned
a little
too close to
the flame
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Truth Is
it’s hard no
next to
impossible
to write
an ambling
narrow
in scope
but boundless
in feeling
plainspoken
seemingly
off the cuff
casual
chatty aside
or two tossed
in for good
measure poem
that mentions
any sort
of gorgeous flora
and not think
of the work
of Jimmy Schuyler
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In a Moment
Sunstruck petals
resting above
bright green bracts
were wracked
by whirling
wind and rain
Their veins
once flush
are now collapsed
expressions
of the dark
and wild storm
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To My Beautiful Enthusiast
Unwittingly, the way deep water moves
Thoughts of the darkness departed
Or I thought of the darkness as departed
I mean I think the darkness departed
I just looked at the data
Day in and day out, idiosyncratic and fragile
And read up on our passing impermanent life
The every-word-under-the-sun edition
It was not on the up and up
Not straightforward or even on the level
Now I say let there be lightness
And silence without malice
With no salve to apply or substance to ingest
I have no flower-cluster abstraction to offer
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To and For is published by Coffee House Press. You can check it out here:
https://coffeehousepress.org/products/to-and-for
And check this out, Writer Chris Kraus Reads Steve Levine:
https://interestingpeoplereadingpoetry.com/2018/06/18/chris-kraus-reads-steve-levine/
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