Denise Levertov Quotes

Quotes about:

• Both art and faith are dependent on imagination; both are ventures into the unknown.

  Denise Levertov

  Art, Imagination, Venture

  64 Copy quote

• You have come to the shore. There are no instructions.

  Denise Levertov

  Instruction, Shore

  Denise Levertov (1989). “A Door in the Hive”, p.40, New Directions Publishing

  66 Copy quote

• Grief is a hole you walk around in the daytime and at night you fall into it.

  Denise Levertov

  Grief, Fall, Night

  38 Copy quote

• I'm not very good at praying, but what I experience when I'm writing a poem is close to prayer.

  Denise Levertov

  Prayer, Writing, Praying

  56 Copy quote

• What I heard was my whole self saying and singing what it knew: I can.

  Denise Levertov

  Self, Singing, Heard

  Denise Levertov (1987). “Breathing the Water”, p.3, New Directions Publishing

  28 Copy quote

• It's when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind's shell and enters the heart.

  Denise Levertov

  Heart, Self, Mind

  Denise Levertov (1997). “The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes”, p.19, New Directions Publishing

  45 Copy quote

• Nothing we do has the quickness, the sureness, the deep intelligence living at peace would have.

  Denise Levertov

  Utopian, Quickness

  Denise Levertov, Peggy Rosenthal (2006). “Making Peace”, p.4, New Directions Publishing

  47 Copy quote

• But we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life. How could we tire of hope?-so much is in bud.

  Denise Levertov

  Inspirational, Fullness Of Life, Bud

  Denise Levertov (2003). “Selected Poems”, p.137, New Directions Publishing

  22 Copy quote

• Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise.

  Denise Levertov

  Turns, Marvelous, Guise

  Denise Levertov (1983). “Poems of Denise Levertov, 1960-1967”, p.62, New Directions Publishing

  31 Copy quote

• Every day, every day I hear enough to fill a year of nights with wondering.

  Denise Levertov

  Night, Years, Wonder

  Denise Levertov (1987). “Breathing the Water”, p.28, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Order, Stopping

  Denise Levertov (1992). “New & Selected Essays”, p.146, New Directions Publishing

  44 Copy quote

• 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

  Believe, Space, Broken

  Denise Levertov (1973). “The poet in the world”, New Directions Publishing Corporation

  29 Copy quote

• Insofar as poetry has a social function it is to awaken sleepers by other means than shock.

  Denise Levertov

  Mean, Social, Function

  Denise Levertov (1973). “The poet in the world”, New Directions Publishing Corporation

  27 Copy quote

• We must breathe time as fishes breathe water.

  Denise Levertov

  Time, Water, Breathe

  Denise Levertov, Paul A. Lacey (2002). “Selected Poems”, p.161, New Directions Publishing

  6 Copy quote

• In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

  Denise Levertov

  Prayer, Healing, Writing

  35 Copy 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

  Heart, Eye, Dark

  Denise Levertov (1993). “Evening Train”, p.41, New Directions Publishing

  8 Copy quote

• Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing their colored clothes; caps and bells. And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng's clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, 0 Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it.

  Denise Levertov

  Memories, Clothes, Offering

  Denise Levertov (1997). “The Stream & the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes”, p.33, New Directions Publishing

  28 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, World, Language

  Denise Levertov (1973). “The poet in the world”, New Directions Publishing Corporation

  29 Copy quote

• The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant.

  Denise Levertov

  Elements, Kind, Poet

  16 Copy quote

• Through the hollow globe, a ring
  of frayed rusty scrapiron,
  is it the sea that shines?
  Is it a road at the world's edge?

  Denise Levertov

  Sea, Shining, World

  4 Copy quote

• Images
  split the truth
  in fractions.

  Denise Levertov

  Splits, Fractions

  Denise Levertov (1983). “Poems of Denise Levertov, 1960-1967”, p.13, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

• There is no savor more sweet, more salt than to be glad to be what, woman, and who, myself, I am.

  Denise Levertov

  Sweet, Women, Salt

  Denise Levertov (1967). “The Sorrow Dance: Poems”, [New York] : New Directions

  21 Copy quote

• I learn to affirm
  Truth's light at strange turns of the mind's road,
  wrong turns that lead
  over the border into wonder.

  Denise Levertov

  Truth, Light, Mind

  12 Copy quote

• Peace as a positive condition of society, not merely as an interim between wars, is something so unknown that it casts no images on the mind's screen.

  Denise Levertov

  Peace, War, Ubuntu

  Denise Levertov (1992). “New & Selected Essays”, p.155, New Directions Publishing

  9 Copy quote

• slowly the pale
  dew-beads of light
  lapped up from flowers
  can thicken,
  darken to gold:
  honey of the human.

  Denise Levertov

  Flower, Light, Gold

  Denise Levertov (2003). “Selected Poems”, p.63, New Directions Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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