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LARRY LEVIS
Two Poems by Larry Levis
Blackbird presents here two poems by Larry
Levis.
The first, "Elegy with
a Thimbleful of Water in the Cage" was originally published in
the Southern Review, then in the collection Elegy (University
of Pittsburgh Press, 1997). The video of Levis reading it was recorded
at
the University of Iowa in the early 1990s.
The audio recording
was made in Winchester, Virginia, in March of 1996.
The second poem, titled here "The Space," is
previously unpublished. "The Space" was found on Larry Levis's
computer after his death among a great body of work which included unpublished
poems and fragments of poems as well as finished poems, some of which
were selected by Philip Levine for inclusion in Elegy. As with
many of the pieces that were in progress when Levis died, "The Space" echoes
recurrent and repeated themes that run through Elegy. Levis's
composition process included moving around substantial sections from
one poem in progress to another,
and
sometimes a section lifted from a completed poem would then become the
germ of an entirely new work. It is possible that "The Space" was
one of the pieces left after the removal to another work of a section
which may have included a more clearly unifying idea or narrative. Still,
even considered as a substantial fragment, "The Space" may
well include more powerful poetry than many reputedly finished works
by less imaginative, less passionate writers. 
Elegy with a Thimbleful of Water
in the Cage | Audio  |
Video 
The Space
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