Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Face
Embrace
Lying
Bears
Swimmers
Faces
Air
Sustains
Upon
Deep
Swimmer
Water
Rest
Hawks
Learn
Grace
Surrounding
Spirit
Effort
Attain
Would
Knowing
Creator

More quotes by Denise Levertov

Image
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
Image
Each part of speech a spark awaiting redemption, each a virtue, a power in abeyance.
Denise Levertov
Image
Images split the truth in fractions.
Denise Levertov
Image
In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
Denise Levertov
Image
Breathe the sweetness that hovers in August.
Denise Levertov
Image
The fire in leaf and grass so green it seems each summer the last summer.
Denise Levertov
Image
Let me walk through the fields of paper touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies.
Denise Levertov
Image
Wear scarlet! Tear the green lemons off the tree! I don't want to forget who I am, what has burned in me, and hang limp and clean, an empty dress -
Denise Levertov
Image
blue bead on the wick, there's that in me that burns and chills, blackening my heart with its soot, I think sometimes not Apollo heard me but a different god.
Denise Levertov
Image
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
Image
Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.
Denise Levertov
Image
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
Image
At Delphi I prayed to Apollo that he maintain in me the flame of the poem and I drank of the brackish spring there.
Denise Levertov
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.
Denise Levertov
Image
In June the bush we call alder was heavy, listless, its leaves studded with galls, growing wherever we didn't want it.
Denise Levertov
Image
Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney's shadow.
Denise Levertov
Image
Do you mistake me? I am speaking of living, of moving from one moment into the next, and into the one after, breathing death in the spring air.
Denise Levertov
Image
I like to find what's not found at once, but lies within something of another nature, in repose, distinct.
Denise Levertov