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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

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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
Living
Death
Breathing
Next
Speaking
Air
Moments
Spring
Life
Mistake
Moment
Moving

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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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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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Every day, every day I hear enough to fill a year of nights with wondering.
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slowly the pale dew-beads of light lapped up from flowers can thicken, darken to gold: honey of the human.
Denise Levertov
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I like to find what's not found at once, but lies within something of another nature, in repose, distinct.
Denise Levertov
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In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.
Denise Levertov
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In June the bush we call alder was heavy, listless, its leaves studded with galls, growing wherever we didn't want it.
Denise Levertov
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The threat of world's end is the old threat.
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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Praise the invisible sun burning beyond the white cold sky, giving us light and the chimney's shadow.
Denise Levertov
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The fire in leaf and grass so green it seems each summer the last summer.
Denise Levertov
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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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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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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
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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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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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Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!
Denise Levertov
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Let me walk through the fields of paper touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies.
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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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