What is Poetry? A Continuum of Consistent Renewal

Looking back at the first assignment I completed for Intro to Lit, I noticed that my answer to the question    "what is poetry?" has not fundamentally changed. 


I still believe that poetry has evolved with language as civilization has developed and changed throughout time, making it as unique and diverse as the writer's own experiences, sensations and emotions. 
And that the poem can be a snapshot into the poet's reality, allowing the reader to experience the sensations and emotions the poet wanted to convey through the words and imagery provided. 


I still see poetry as closely related to any form of art, and like any work of art, a poem can be interpreted distinctively by the individuals reading it -  but at the auditory nature of poetry in its rhythm and musicality, allow for it to be shared same time the poet's or artist's world is shared harmoniously by the collective audience.


Looking back at the first assignment I completed for Intro to Lit, I noticed that my answer to the question    "what is poetry?" has not fundamentally changed. I still believe that poetry has evolved with language as civilization has developed and changed throughout time, making it as unique and diverse as the writer's own experiences, sensations and emotions; and that the poem can be a snapshot into the poet's reality, allowing the reader to experience the sensations and emotions the poet wanted to convey through the words and imagery provided. I still see poetry as closely related to any form of art, and like any work of art, a poem can be interpreted distinctively by the individuals reading it - but the auditory nature of poetry in its rhythm and musicality, allow for it to be shared same time the poet's or artist's world is shared harmoniously by the collective audience.

Although the foundation of my definition of poetry has not changed over the course of Intro to Lit, I have gained and added a great deal more knowledge and insight about poetry in several different ways. Through the study and imitation of Whitman and Dickinson, I was able to gain an understanding not only about what makes these particular poets' work great, but what influenced their work, and how their work has affected and influenced many great poets since has helped me to see the importance of the context of poetry as well. 

Looking at the work of different poets in "Against Forgetting" continued to help me realize the importance looking at poetry in context. I have realized that poetry is not just born of individuals alone, and is not only a product of political systems. Carolyn Forche, in her introduction to the book, shows a third way to view poetry: the social realm, in which our social lives are made up of individual choices and beliefs as well as products of choices determined by political powers that we might not be aware of. This is the essence of the poetry of witness. By situating poetry in the social space of conscious resistance and struggle against forces outside the individual, we may be able to transcend some of our preconceived prejudices and limitations (31). Reading and listening to different poets' work in "Against Forgetting" helped me to begin to understand that poetry is far more complex than I had originally perceived it to be. I feel like I have only just grazed the surface of how deep the nuances of poetry can go. In my research of the Eastern Bloc, Poland, and Wislawa Szymborska during the "Against Forgetting" project, I found how the poetic voice and medium can be extremely powerful as both a product of and a reaction to the social realm.

I found that Szymborska's poetry is quite tangibly influenced by both Nazi atrocities, and Soviet governance. Looking at her biography and career, I discovered that her work and ideology move from starting out as being heavily influenced by socialism and"socialist realism" (a realistic style of art developed by the Soviet Union), but she ended up becoming distrustful of the ideology. Despite this change however, the poet continued to have a a deep element of humanitarianism in her work.

In researching scholarly journals to find more background on the poet's country and political context, I learned that Polish and European post-war poetry often seeks to refute both individualist subjectivity and vague ideas in the objective collective. This is especially the case with Szymborska, who brings the collective poetical element brings into light a specific element of poetry: that the mutual act of remembering is united with a responsibility also to forget. But this is not not the malignant form of forgetting which undermines or discounts the individual; to “move on” or continue without hereditary guilt as an act of forgiveness innate to healing of the individual life within social organism is much of what Szymborska’s “forward-looking clear-minded” work is based upon (Tapscott 43,44). This notion of individual life existing within a larger social organism as linked to a mutual act of remembering and responsibility to forget is an element that I found to be an essential addition to my definition of poetry.

The individual poetry project gave me a chance to experience the work of Denise Levertov through her collection "Life in the Forest," and this helped me learn how to look at individual poems as connected within a larger sections within a book. I also learned a little bit about different groups and movements of poetry, and although I still don't know much about the specific movements, this added nuances to my definition of poetry.  The spiritual and mystical elements of the poet's work showed me a whole new realm of possibilities for how poetry can be defined - with the ability to transcend definite barriers. I had chosen the poem “I’m Happiest When Most Away” as my favorite at the beginning of the course because it shows the poet's desire to transcend the barriers of the body and the Earth -

I'm happiest when most away

I can bear my soul from its home of clay

On a windy night when the moon is bright

And the eye can wander through worlds of light—

When I am not and none beside—

Nor earth nor sea nor cloudless sky—

But only spirit wandering wide

Through infinite immensity.

-Emily Bronte

This poem showed me the beauty of seeking an escape from the material confines of the world and the flesh through the beauty and simplicity of language. The structure is fairly traditional, written in iambic tetrameter with only two quatrains, but its simplicity allows for a very definite feeling of transcendence.

I found Levertov’s poetry in “Life in the Forest” to be very rich and diverse, and the structure of the sections and the thematic elements of the poems throughout showed me the poet’s ability to transcend the confines of individual reality, but remain within the very tangible expression of the mysteries of human experience.
           
In the first poem of “Life in the Forest” entitled “Human Being,” the poet confronts the existential reality of suffering and joy in stark but beautiful images of nature and life while simultaneously combining and transcending the physical realities of the Earth and the flesh:
           

Human being – walking

                In doubt from childhood on: walking

                a ledge of slippery stone in the world’s woods
                deep-layered with wet leaves – rich or sad: on one
                side of the path, ecstasy, on the other
                dull grief                     Walking

                the mind’s imperial cities, roofed-over alleys,
                                                              thoroughfares, wide boulevards
                that hold evening primrose of sky in steady calipers.

                Always the mind
                walking, working, stopping sometimes to kneel
                in awe of beauty, sometimes leaping, filled with the energy
                of delight, but never able to pass
                the brick that crumbles and is replaced of twisted iron,
                of rock,
                the wall that speaks, saying monotonously:

                                Children and animals
                                                                          Who cannot learn
                                anything from suffering,
                                suffer, are tortured, die
                                in incomprehension

                This human being, each night nevertheless
                Summoning – with a breath blown at a flame,
                                                                                                                or hand’s touch
                on the lamp-switch – darkness,
                                                                                 silently utters,
                impelled as if by a need to cup the palms
                and drink from a river,
                                                                the words, ‘Thanks.
                Thanks for this day, a day of my life.’
                                                                                                And wonders.
                Pulls up the blankets, looking
                into nowhere, always in doubt.
            And takes strange
                in having repeated once more the childish formula,
                a pleasure in what is seemly.
                And drifts to sleep, downstream
                on murmuring currents of doubt and praise,
                the wall shadowy, that tomorrow
                will cast its own familiar, chill, clear-cut shadow
                into the day’s brilliance. 

               - Denise Levertov


This poem is one of my favorites because though similar to Bronte’s “I’m Happiest When Most Away” in its mystical and spiritual elements, it shows a way of embracing both the joyous and painful parts of life through a beautiful poetic voice and vision.

One of the most valuable things I learned from the class came from Peter Fallon’s visit. He answered the question of which of his poems was hardest to write, responding with his realization after writing poems for many years that he has had to constantly reinvent both his poems and the concept of what it means to be a poet, as well. I felt that this was extremely significant to the implications of my own definition of poetry as both a concrete model and a constantly changing and growing organic entity.

 Fallon said in response to a question on the nature of lyric poetry, that not everything has to be autobiographical - and that while life experiences are at the root of his poetry, and all poetry for that matter, the shaping of language and composing a poem out of a specific experience takes patience, diligence, and commitment. I think this idea is exactly what Denise Levertov had in mind when she wrote and compiled the poems for “Life in the Forest.”
Fallon also spoke about the nature of poetry as containing a certain mystery - the mystery of meaning. He implied that the most important element of writing poems for him has been the question of whether or not he 'trusts' the poem. "If I trust the poem that is all that matters to me" he said. The poem as a matter of trust is one of the most practical and insightful things I have heard and will keep it in mind in both reading and the writing of poetry in the future. Fallon also  talked about the combination of the mystery element with a very ordinary routine and comfort in the writing of poems, and after having read “Life in the Forest” and learning about Denise Levertov, I felt that both poets must have had a similar perspective and ability to combine the stability of routine with the thrill of the unknown. 

Poetry is where the poet can truly be his or her self, to filter and absorb an experience through the shaping of language, to find a certain mysterious balance. Poetry is the multitudes of the soul coming out through the beauty of focused language, contained within a specific form and structure, through which the reader or listeners are able to connect with the poem to find a sense of engagement, in the arena of the benign.

"Life in the Forest" - Denise Levertov's Explorations in the Wilderness of Poetry

Born in 1923 in Ilford, Essex, Denise Levertov spent her early years in frequent solitude absorbing the English countryside. Educated by her mother, a Welsh writer and painter, she was introduced to many of the great poets and novelists at a young age. Levertov's father, a Russian Jew of Hasidic background, introduced her to religion and spirituality in the form of mysticism. Levertov's family was quite politically active during the Second World War; her parents worked on behalf of German and Austrian refugees and protested against fascism and injustice.

Levertov knew she wanted to be a poet from a young age, receiving advice and encouragement from T.S. Eliot when she was twelve. Her first poem was published when she was seventeen. The poet's early work has been praised as containing a language of effortlessly defined and direct beauty. Later on in her life, Levertov would become involved in civil disobedience and protest against the Vietnam War, taking this socio-political and justice-seeking element into her work.

I learned a great deal about Denise Levertov as both a poet and a person from her book "Life in the Forest." The way the book was structured, with the intentional sequencing of five sections, allows for each section to be  linked by deeply human themes which are developed throughout. In her introduction to the book, the poet writes of her intentions in developing the sections of the book as a means to explore more expansive ways of writing, and suggests alternate ways of reading the work to find unity between the poems and sections.

After looking into Levertov's biography, I found that around the time "Life in the Forest" was published, the poet had gone through both the divorce of her husband and the death of her mother. This realization helped me to better understand and connect with many of the poems in a way which would not have been possible otherwise.

The first section of the book, entitled Homage to Pavese, begins with a poem of expansive language and beautiful images in resonance with the title and later themes of the book. Levertov uses the metaphor of a human being walking to represent the mind in awe of beauty - the beauty which is not only ecstasy, but grief as well. I think Levertov was implying that "the forest" or wilderness or nature of the soul, and attempting to understand the world from childhood on, is like walking along a fine line -

"a ledge of slippery stone in the world's woods
deep-layered with wet leaves - rich or sad: on one
side of the path, ecstasy, on the other
dull grief" (3). 

At the center of this poem lies profound insight fueled by the fires of the poet's wisdom - speaking the truth that although innocent creatures such as children and animals suffer and die without comprehending why, "human being" continues venturing into the unknown, floating down the river of life. I was fascinated by the mysterious nature of this poem, and it urged me to continue reading and exploring to find what would come next.

After the mystifying opening poem, the first section moves on to explore personal reflection in the depictions of strangers, finding insight through social interaction and encounters with others. Levertov manages to provide deeply personal lyric poetry even with the use of techniques such as referring to herself in the third person, and maintaining a distance in her writing at which the reader can compare to how one might view a stranger.
 This combination of self-as-stranger, and the intimacy with which the poet depicts the people she meets in her travels builds a foundation and direction for the subsequent poems of the book. I knew by the end of the first section that these poems represented a poet and person of many complexities, and the beauty and simplicity of the words exploring both a personal life and the lives of others showed me a deep compassion at the root the writing.

In the final three poems of Homage to Pavese, the poet moves from the third person exploration of the lives of others, to writing in the first-person about the death of her mother. Parallels between the language and themes of the poem "A Mystery (Oaxaca, Mexico)," and "The 90th Year" were quite clear - with the focus of the former as a portrait of a vendor who finds meaning in his work despite being very elderly, and the latter as a portrait of the poet's ninety-year-old mother despite being frail and sickly continuing to do household tasks because they give the day its pattern.

 The poet's beautiful description of a a village in Oaxaca helped me connect with Levertov's personal life even more when I learned that she and her mother had spent many years in Mexico.
In the following poem, "A Daughter (I)," the poet explores the pain and death of her mother. Through a third-person narrative voice, the poet looks back on her own life in remembrance of her relationship and past interactions with her mother.Sensing a deep personal conflict and sorrow, I  imagined how it might have been easier for the poet to write about this painful subject by looking back on her own life from a distance.

In "A Daughter (II)," the poet returns to a first-person narrative, and using the image of traveling in a jet as a metaphor for moving forward in time, pauses to look back on the times she spent with her dying mother with a great deal of regret and pain.

The final poem of the section, "Death in Mexico," gives the image and metaphor of a garden slowly withering and vanishing along with the death of the poet's mother. The poem ends with a sense that bitterness, regret, and nostalgia are irrelevant in the face of eternity. The death of the poet's mother taking place far from home in Mexico very effectively paralleled the foreignness of the pain of loss in the tone of the poem.

The book's second section - Continuum, lived up to its title. the nature of the poems in this section not only lamented the death of the poet's mother, but praised her life as well. I noticed the poet moving on from the subject and images of grief with the poem "Talking to Grief," in which sorrow is welcomed in to the poet's house like a stray dog. This seemed to represent a certain uneasy peace made with heartache.
The poem "Earliest Spring" shows the poet's remembrance of how her mother taught her to pause and see beauty in life through the image of sharing the beauty of a newly sprouted garden.

The poems "Emblem (I)" and "Emblem (II)" depict two separate dreams filled with wilderness and nature imagery. The former shows an expansive feeling of aloneness in a forest heath, and the latter poem shows a cocoon struggling to open but constrained by oppressive grief.
In the rest of the section, the poet continues to move between spiritual and philosophical elements, returning to to images of nature as metaphors for both doubt and praise.

The final poems of the section arrive at the socio-political realm, although they contain deeply personal elements. In "The Long Way Round," the poet writes about how she learned about herself and her own true identity through witnessing the the struggles of Vietnamese and African-American women - opening up her eyes to the pain and agony of oppression based on skin color. This gave the poet a sense of her own desire to truly connect with people and speak out against injustice.

The third section, Modulations for Solo Voice, contains some of the most complex and experimental poems of the book. Although many of the poems in this section seemed abstract and were difficult for me to grasp, I found some distinct elements that provided continuity with the themes of the previous sections. After several poems relating her love for great authors such as Anton Checkhov to her personal relationships, the poet returns to the theme of nature, with the comparison the decay and aging of her own body to a wilting flower.

In one of the final poems entitled "Modulations," the poet returns to and connects three of the main themes of the book - human beings, nature, and justice.


"The vision / of river, of nectarine, is not mine only. / All humankind, women and men, / hungry, / hungry beyond hunger / for food, for justice, / pick themselves up and stumble on / for this: to transcend barriers, longing / for absolution of each by each, luxurious unlearning / of lies and fears, / for joy, that throws down the reins / on the neck of  / the divine animal / who carries us through the world"(84,85). 



Before "Life in the Forest" was published, Denise Levertov had gone though both the death of her mother and the divorce of her husband. This double-trauma adds to the poignancy of her poems using metaphors and imagery of nature in the form of desolate heaths and constricting cocoons. In the final sections of the book, Levertov continues to touch on the subject of lost love, but moves in a direction which suggests a realization of identity through solitude.

The title poem concludes with the image of a woman who finds refuge in a forest - a woman who finds peace in Eternity but refuses to allow the Eternal to enter her house when it knocks on her door after it left her to go wandering. She remains safe within her shelter. 



I had never read a full book of poetry before "Life in the Forest," but Levertov's simple but beautiful words and distinct sections helped me to connect with what I felt was something transcendent in the vast spiritual elements I encountered. Journeying through the poems of this book made me feel like I was beginning to know the poet, but also that I was getting to know my own self in a more profound way - thus better understanding what it means to be a human-being. I believe that Levertov's depicitons of both common and extraordinary elements of human existence might have had this in mind when she compiled the poems in "Life in the Forest." I encourage anyone who is willing to venture into the wilderness of poetry and human nature to explore this book.

Structure of "Life in the Forest," with analysis of an essential poem

Denise Levertov's book "Life in the Forest" (1978), is purposefully structured to show the rich diversity of her work. In the introductory not of the book, Levertov writes about the first section aptly titled Homage to Pavese, explaining that the indefinite direction in which her work was heading was confirmed and validated by her discover of Cesare Pavese's book "Lavore Stanca" (1936). This direction was impelled by a desire to vary a habitual lyric mode through exploration of more expansive means, and to avoid overuse of autobiographical motif. Levertov suggests alternate ways of reading between the poems and suggestions - with the implicit and unified organic form of the poems allowing them to be read or viewed as both contained within their respective sections, and connected throughout the book by unifying themes.

The first section of the book, entitled Homage to Pavese, introduces the themes and images of nature, humanity, traveling, separation, loneliness, lovers, and the death of a loved one. By the end of the section, the poet focuses entirely on the death of her mother.

The poem "A Daughter (I)" is written entirely in third person, although the poet is referring to herself. This method emphasizes the metaphor of the existential strangeness of the death of a loved one, as well as the poet's expression of grieving and for the distance or alienation in her mother dying far from home.

For example, the poet writes of herself in the third person in the second stanza of the poem:
"...And part of her / ached for her mother's pain, / her dying here - at home, yet far away from home, / thousands of miles of earth and sea, and and ninety years / from her roots"...(26).

And similarly toward the end of the poem:
"...She wants to go back to Mexico, sit by her mother, / have her be strong and say, Go, child, and I bless you. / She did say it! But weakly; it wasn't enough; she wants to hear it again and again" (28).

Although "A Daughter (I)" is written in the third person, Levertov manages to convey an great amount of grief and sorrow. The effect of the poet writing about herself from this distance allows for omniscient wisdom rooted in tragedy.

In the last stanza the poet writes:

"...Something within her twists and turns, / she is tired and ashamed. She sobs, but her eyes / cannot make tears. She imagines herself / entering a dark cathedral to pray, and blessedly /  falling asleep there, and not wakening / for a year, for seven years, / for a century"(28).

Denise Levertov: A Life in Poetry

Denise Levertov’s prolific writing reflects the expression of a true artist influenced by her surroundings. Born in 1923 in Ilford, Essex to Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff and Paul Philip Levertoff, she spent her early years exploring in frequent solitude. She was free to wander, exploring the countryside and its historic towns, visiting museums, reveling in gardens, and reading avidly (Greene).  She was educated by her mother, a Welsh writer and painter, who introduced her to many of the great poets and novelists. Her father was a Russian Jew of Hasidic background who later converted to Christianity and became an Anglican parson and scholar of Jewish mysticism; he was the primary influence for the central theme of the celebration of mystery in Levertov’s poetry. The poet’s family was quite socially active during the Second World War; her parents worked on behalf of German and Austrian refugees, her father protested Italian fascism and Britain’s lack of support of Spain, and she and her sister sold the Daily Worker door to door to working class families (qtd in "Denise Levertov 1923-1997").  This humanitarian involvement and awareness deeply influenced Levertov’s later work. 

Levertov knew she wanted to be a writer from a very young age. When she was 12, she sent some of her poems to T.S. Eliot, who replied with excellent advice and encouragement to continue writing (poets.org). At seventeen, her first poem was published.  Her first book, The Double Image, was published in 1946 – establishing her as one of the “New Romantic” poets. A year after her first volume of poetry was published, she married American writer Mitchell Goodman. They moved to the United States in 1948. 

During her first years in America, Levertov was eager to explore poetry in a new context. She discovered inspiration in Emerson, Thoreau, and Ezra Pound, and especially William Carlos Williams. She encountered Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and with them became associated with the Black Mountain School of poetry (Greene). During the 1950s, Levertov experienced and lived in Mexico, France and then New York City; she continued to write, and produced five volumes of poems during this time. Her book With Eyes at the Back of Our Heads, published in 1960, established Levertov as a true American poet. Critics praised her poetic voice as “in one sense, indebted to the simple, concrete language and imagery, and also the immediacy...of precise beauty” ( Qtd. poetryfoundation.org).

 

With the United States' instigation and immersion in the Vietnam War during the 1960s, Levertov's social consciousness began to more fully impact her poetry and social life (poetryfoundation.org). She, along with some other writers, founded the organization "Writers and Artists Protest against the War in Vietnam." She was involved in numerous anti-war demonstrations, and was temporarily jailed several times for civil disobedience. 




Levertov's poetry began taking on more socio-polical themes in the years during and after the Vietnam War, often causing critics and commentators to view these poems with disfavor. However, although some critics said that these socio-political poems were more akin to prose works or even "preachy" or "sentimental," a few saw value in them as historical documents which recorded and preserved the the people events and conversations therein.This reflects the idea Carolyn Forche makes clear in her introduction to "Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness," saying that "...the poem might be our only evidence that an event has occurred: it exists for us as the sole trace of an occurrence (31)." 




James F. Mersmann's book, of the Vietnam Vortex: A Study of Poets and Poetry against the War, contains both lengthy analysis and substantial praise of Levertov's social protest poems. Mersmann writes of Levertov's early poetry, saying "There are no excesses of ecstasy or despair, celebration or denigration, naivete or cynicism; there is instead an acute ability to find simple beauties in the heart of squalor and something to relish even in negative experiences"(qtd in "Denise Levertov 1923-1997"). He continues, praising Levertov's ability to "...[reach] to the heart of things, [finding] out what their centers are. If the reader can follow, he is welcomed along, but although the poetry is mindful of communication and expression, its primary concern is discovery"(qtd in "Denise Levertov 1923-1997"). Mersmann nevertheless contrasts Levertov's early work with her poetry of social protest, claiming that "'the chaos of the war disrupted the balance, the wholeness, and the fundamental concern for discovery apparent in her work - [with] the shadow of the Vietnam War [coming] to alter all this: vision becomes clouded, form is broken, balance is impossible, and the psyche is unable to throw off its illness and sorrow'"("Denise Levertov 1923-1997"). 




The versatility and genuine humanitarianism of Levertov's poetic voice can be seen through her 1978 book "Life in the Forest," in which she simultaneously explores the pain and sorrow of her own life, and searches the the lives and connections between others for spiritual significance. Levertov manages to convey a lucid and sincere picture of her own life through the poems of the book while consciously avoiding an overly autobiographical voice through the use of variation of the habitual lyric mode. The poet shows a brilliant awareness of the world from which her poems were derived, and into which they would be received - moving in a direction which strongly tends toward a more expansive voice. Levertov, in her introduction to the book, writes about how the poems represented her desire to go beyond what she called "the over-use autobiographical, the dominant first-person singular of so much American poetry - good and bad - of recent years" (vii).


In contrast to the overwhelming social tragedy of the Vietnam War which influenced most of her published work of the 1960s, Levertov uses the subject of her mother's life and death as a theme for many of the poems in "Life in the Forest." Part of this new direction can be explained by her discovery of fellow poet and companion spirit in Cesare Pavese, of whom she wrote:


         
           Pavese's beautiful poems are about various persons other than himself; though he is a presence in         them also,their focus is definitely not autobiographical and egocentric and in his accompanying essays he speaks of  his concept of suggesting a narrative though the depiction of a scene, a landscape, rather than through directly recounting of events as such  (Levertov, vii).


This praise of Pavese compliments Levertov's own ability and tendency to avoid directly recounting autobiographical events or immense philosophical subjects through the painting of scenes and images in her own unique but straightforward style. This ability to summon the mystical and the divine in through simple and beautiful language is one of the outstanding characteristics of "Life in the Forest." 

Paraphrase of Denise Levertov's "Fellow Passengers"

A good-looking grownup kid, he appears,
Wearing his carefully-picked suit and wedding band,
his hair not too long, or short, he's taking
a business trip, most likely one of his first -

hearing with awe the bearded man boast
about the same age, in the window seat,
a returning soldier, bragging of his time in Africa:
tan, fairish hair, royal scoundrel
hushed, excitedly, beneath the airplane's dull
quiet groaning.

The businessman-boy, unworldly, laughs, vivacity
exiting in small bursts - his emanation
broken - at a glimpse of
disgraced love. Something morose
makes his thick dark lashes flicker, motioning
with such manicured hands, 

hands his puerile wife
probably wants to bite, when they flounder,
sinless and hasty,
at her indignant thighs.

Fellow Passengers - By Denise Levertov

A handsome fullgrown child, he seems,
In his well-chosen suit and wedding ring,
hair not too long or too short, taking
a business trip, surely one of his first -

listening entrhalled to the not-much-older
bearded man in the window seat,
a returned mercenary, bragging of Africa:
bronzed, blondish, imperial pirate
halfaudible, thrillingly, under the jet's monotonous
subdued growling.

The baby businessman, naif, laughs, excitement
springing from him in little splashes - his aura
fragmented - at a whiff of
soiled romance. It is something morbid
that flutters his dark thick lashes, gestures
with such well-cared-for hands,

hands his young wife
must want to bite, when they fumble,
innocent and impatient 
at her tense thighs.

May 1976

Analysis of Denise Levertov's short poem "Fellow Passengers"

Denise Levertov's poem "Fellow Passengers" is structured with four stanzas, beginning with a quatrain, followed by two sestets, and ending with a quatrain. The lines are enjambed somewhat irregularly in order to allow for the specific number of lines in each stanza. The straight-forward structure of the poem is unique when viewed from within the context of Levertov's 1978 book "Life in the Forest," in which many of the poems are written in a modernist lyric style unrestricted by traditional forms. The freely structured poems allow the subject and lyrical thoughts, emotions, and images Levertov wanted to convey to be emphasized. Although the poet uses the fairly simple stanza structure in "Fellow Passengers" to paint a clear picture for the reader or listener, Levertov manages to create a complex portrait through her description of a young man's interaction with a soldier on a train with a great deal of undertones and subtext.

The poem begins by describing the main character: "a handsome fullgrown child." The incongruity in the first line's phrasing both introduces the subject and sets the tone of the poem. In the subsequent lines of the stanza, the poet focuses on the man's well-groomed appearance -

   "A handsome fullgrown child, he seems,
    in his well-chosen suit and wedding-ring,
    hair not too long or short, taking
    a business trip, surely one of his first-(20)"

The image of this man is fleshed out as Levertov emphasizes the fact that he is married, and one can infer that he is probably self-absorbed or at least self-conscious due to his meticulous choice of suit. The emphasis on the wedding ring may imply that he is not only new to the work world, he may be a newlywed as well. 

The poet continues in the second stanza, depicting another man about the same age, providing an almost exact opposite contrast to the "fullgrown child." The second man, although blond, is bronzed and bearded. He is bragging, and is even described as an "imperial pirate" -

   "listening enthralled to the not-much-older
    bearded man in the window seat,
    a returned mercenary, bragging of Africa:
    bronzed, blondish, imperial pirate
    halfaudible, thrillingly, under the jet's monotonous
    subdued growling (20)." 

This description provides tension between the juxtaposed images of the men, and sets up a deeper look at the "handsome fullgrown child."

The poem continues with Levertov showing a more complex view of the man in the third stanza, in which the tension increases. Although the the naive "baby businessman" is laughing and seems to be having a good time conversing with the mercenary, there seems to be something of an underlying angst that the poet sees and subtly shows the reader.

   "The baby businessman, naif, laughs, excitement
    springing from him in little splashes - his aura
    fragmented - at a whiff of
    soiled romance. It is something morbid
    that flutters his dark thick lashes, gestures
    with such well-cared-for hands, (20)" 


Levertov describes his fragmented aura, the implication of which could be that the man is much more complex than his well dressed and clean-cut exterior. The poet hints at "soiled romance," which is intriguing due to the connection with the emphasis on the man's wedding ring in the first stanza, and beneath the fluttering of his dark thick eyelashes and the gesturing of his well-cared-for hands, there is something morbid controlling him.
What does this "morbid"ness imply? Is it an obsession, or is it something that the man can't escape, a fear perhaps? 

Levertov takes a turn toward something completely different in the final stanza,showing a jarring notion of the man's "well-cared-for hands... hands his young wife must want to bite, when they fumble, / innocent and impatient, at her tense thighs (20)." These final lines suggest an overtly sexual element, and seems almost lurid in comparison to the overtones of childish innocence at the beginning of the poem. 

This perverse and shocking ending shows how the poet when using a simple straight-forward structure is given the liberty to flesh out images, concepts and emotions (even unexpected ones). Levertov does this in four fairly short stanzas: the first quatrain introducing a man in a specific way, then another man of completely opposite nature is introducing in the second sestet providing contrast, and the first man is developed further in the third sestet. Instead of writing about the dynamics between the two men, or even looking into the root of why the young man might be the way he in the abstract intellectual or lyrical poetic way, Levertov introduces the wife of the man in a concrete physical way - adding an element of tangible anxiety and painful awkwardness, but possibly even playfulness and humor as an intentional afterthought to the otherwise introspective and pensive poem. 

The dynamic layers of the poem's sociological and psychological elements have the possibility to be analyzed with many interpretations even without looking at the last stanza, but part of the depth of this poem it seems to me, lies in how the final quatrain has the ability to surprise and catch the reader off-guard. I doubt Levertov would have been able to do this so effectively had she not written the poem in this deceptively simple structure.