Denise Levertov

There comes a time when only anger is love.

— Denise Levertov

In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.

— Denise Levertov

Each part of speech a spark awaiting redemption, each a virtue, a power in abeyance.

— Denise Levertov

On the kitchen wall a flash of shadow: swift pilgr image of pigeons, a spiral celebration of air, of sky-deserts.

— Denise Levertov

Beespittle, droppings, hairs of beefur: all become honey. Virulent micro-organisms cannot survive in honey.

— Denise Levertov

Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.

— Denise Levertov

The fire in leaf and grass so green it seems each summer the last summer.

— Denise Levertov

Love is a landscape the long mountains define but don't shut off from the unseeable distance.

— Denise Levertov

And our dreams, with what frivolity we have pared them like toenails, clipped them like ends of split hair.

— Denise Levertov

In city, in suburb, in forest, no way to stretch out the arms - so if you would grow, go straight up…

— Denise Levertov

Mediocrity is perhaps due not so much to lack of imagination as to lack of faith in the imagination, lack of the…

— Denise Levertov

One of the obligations of the writer is to say or sing all that he or she can, to deal with as…

— Denise Levertov

Death and pain dominate this world, for though many are cured, they leave still weak, still tremulous, still knowing mortality has whispered…

— Denise Levertov

I believe every space and comma is a living part of the poem and has its function, just as every muscle and…

— Denise Levertov

There's in my mind a... turbulent moon-ridden girl or old woman, or both, dressed in opals and rags, feathers and torn taffeta,…

— Denise Levertov

I'll dig in into my days, having come here to live, not to visit. Grey is the price of neighboring with eagles,…

— Denise Levertov

The AvowalAs swimmers dareto lie face to the skyand water bears them,as hawks rest upon airand air sustains them;so would I learn…

— Denise Levertov

Let the space under the first storey be dark, let the water lap the stone posts, and vivid green slime glimmer upon…

— Denise Levertov

Looking, Walking, Being, I look and look. Looking's a way of being: one becomes, sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever…

— Denise Levertov

When you're really caught up in writing a poem, it can be a form of prayer. I'm not very good at praying,…

— Denise Levertov

“The Broken Sandal" Dreamed the thong of my sandal broke. Nothing to hold it to my foot. How shall I walk? Barefoot?…

— Denise Levertov

“Some people, no matter what you give them, still want the moon. The bread, the salt, white meat and dark meat, still…

— Denise Levertov

A poet articulating the dreads and horrors of our time is necessary in order to make readers understand what is happening, really…

— Denise Levertov

“The Avowal As swimmers dare to lie face to the sky and water bears them, as hawks rest upon air and air…

— Denise Levertov

I thought I was growing wings— it was a cocoon. I thought, now is the time to step into the fire— it…

— Denise Levertov

“The roses tremble; oh, the sunflower's eye Is opened wide in sad expectancy. Westward and back the circling swallows fly, The rooks'…

— Denise Levertov

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

— Denise Levertov

In June the bush we call alder was heavy, listless, its leaves studded with galls, growing wherever we didn't want it.

— Denise Levertov

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

— Denise Levertov

Hypocrite women, how seldom we speak of our own doubts, while dubiously we mother man in his doubt!

— Denise Levertov

At Delphi I prayed to Apollo that he maintain in me the flame of the poem and I drank of the brackish…

— Denise Levertov

So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear.

— Denise Levertov

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

— Denise Levertov

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

— Denise Levertov

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

— Denise Levertov

A sense of the present rises out of earth and grass, enters the feet, ascends into the genitals, constricting the breast…

— Denise Levertov

Putting his hope in certain death, lowering his head again to the grass.

— Denise Levertov

my pleasure was in the strength of my back, in my noble shoulders, the cool smooth flesh cylinders of my arms.

— Denise Levertov

Through the hollow globe, a ring of frayed rusty scrapiron, is it the sea that shines? Is it a road at the…

— Denise Levertov

Writing poetry is a process of discovery...you can smell the poem before you see it…Like some animal.

— Denise Levertov