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One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as much of the world as becomes possible to him or her in language.

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
Obligations
Language
Obligation
Writing
Sing
Much
Deal
World
Writer
Deals
Becomes
Possible

More quotes by Denise Levertov

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Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
Denise Levertov
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The world is not with us enough. O taste and see.
Denise Levertov
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Teachers at all levels encourage the idea that you have to talk about things in order to understand them, because they wouldn't have jobs, otherwise. But it's phony, you know.
Denise Levertov
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The AvowalAs swimmers dareto lie face to the skyand water bears them,as hawks rest upon airand air sustains themso would I learn to attain freefall, and floatinto Creator Spirit's deep embrace,knowing no effort earnsthat all-surrounding grace.
Denise Levertov
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Let the space under the first storey be dark, let the water lap the stone posts, and vivid green slime glimmer upon them let a boat be kept there.
Denise Levertov
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Both art and faith are dependent on imagination both are ventures into the unknown.
Denise Levertov
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And our dreams, with what frivolity we have pared them like toenails, clipped them like ends of split hair.
Denise Levertov
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An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.
Denise Levertov
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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.
Denise Levertov
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There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am.
Denise Levertov
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In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
Denise Levertov
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What joy when the insouciant armadillo glances at us and doesn't quicken his trotting across the track into the palm brush. What is this joy? That no animal falters, but knows what it must do?
Denise Levertov
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The threat of world's end is the old threat.
Denise Levertov
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Love is a landscape the long mountains define but don't shut off from the unseeable distance.
Denise Levertov
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Mediocrity is perhaps due not so much to lack of imagination as to lack of faith in the imagination, lack of the capacity for this abandon.
Denise Levertov
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Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!
Denise Levertov
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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.
Denise Levertov
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Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.
Denise Levertov
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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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But for us the road unfurls itself, we don't stop walking, we know there is far to go.
Denise Levertov