“ The Mercy The ship that took my mother to Ellis Island eighty-three years ago was named "The Mercy." She remembers trying to eat a banana without first peeling it and seeing her first orange in the hands of a… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
I find you in these tears, few, useless and here at last. Don't come back. — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
There'll always be working people in my poems because I grew up with them, and I am a poet of memory. — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity. — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
“He embodied what he worshipped, the exquisite in the commonplace…salt for the spirit.” — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
“As you know, Joyce was a writer who asked his reader to give him a lifetime,” he said. “I am that reader, and I… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
“Thirty years will pass before I remember that moment when suddenly I knew each man has one brother who dies when he sleeps and… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
“From they sack and they belly opened And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth They feed they Lion and he comes.” — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
Corruption is subtle, just like the Bible said. Many young poets have come to me and asked, How am I gonna make it? They… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
“ Our Valley We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August when the worst heat seems to rise from the… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
I started listening to music when I wrote when I had three sons at home. — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
Listen to these young poets and you'll discover the voice of the present and hear the voice of the future before the future is… — Philip Levine Copy Share Image
