Quote

In the dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day, eager to be shared. Black silk, shelter me. I need more of the night before I open eyes and heart to illumination. I must still grow in the dark like a root not ready, not ready at all.

Denise Levertov

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Denise Levertov
Age: 74 †
Born: 1923
Born: October 24
Died: 1997
Died: December 20
Poet
Translator
Writer
Ilford
London
Priscilla D Levertoff
Priscilla Denise Levertoff
Priscilla Denise Levertov
Needs
Eye
Roots
Dawns
Heart
Black
Grow
Illumination
Like
Night
Rest
Silk
Light
Ready
Eager
Stills
Open
Shelter
Still
Grows
Shared
Need
Eyes
Root
Must
Dark
Dawn

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And our dreams, with what frivolity we have pared them like toenails, clipped them like ends of split hair.
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In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
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Images split the truth in fractions.
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Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney's shadow.
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The fire in leaf and grass so green it seems each summer the last summer.
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A poet articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in order to make readers understand what is happening, really understand it, not just know about it but feel it: and should be accompanied by a willingness on the part of those who write it to take additional action towards stopping the great miseries which they record.
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The vast silence of Buddha overtakes and overrules the oncoming roar of tragic life that fills alleys and avenues it blocks the way of pedicabs, police, convoys.
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I believe every space and comma is a living part of the poem and has its function, just as every muscle and pore of the body has its function. And the way the lines are broken is a functioning part essential to the life of the poem.
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Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.
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Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!
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I watch the clouds as I see them in pomp advancing, pursuing the fallen sun.
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our nerve filaments twitch with its presence day and night, nothing we say has not the husky phlegm of it in the saying, nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.
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The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.
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