Now I think poetry will save nothing from oblivion, but I keep writing about the ordinary because for me it's the home of the extraordinary, the only home. Philip Levine extraordinaryhomeoblivion Change image and share on social
But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity. Philip Levine commonlyintensitylot Change image and share on social
It's ironic that while I was a worker in Detroit, which I left when I was twenty six, my sense was that the thing that's going to stop me from being a poet is the fact that I'm doing this crummy work. Philip Levine crummydetroitfact Change image and share on social
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 others. Philip Levine afraidfindgod Change image and share on social
My sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote. Philip Levine consciousintenselynotion Change image and share on social
My temperament is not geared to that of a novelist. Philip Levine gearnovelisttemperament Change image and share on social
I have a sense that many Americans, especially those like me with European or foreign parents, feel they have to invent their families just as they have to invent themselves. Philip Levine americaneuropeanfamily Change image and share on social
If that voice that you created that is most alive in the poem isn't carried throughout the whole poem, then I destroy where it's not there, and I reconstruct it so that that voice is the dominant voice in the poem. Philip Levine alivecarrycreate share on social
I listen to jazz about three hours a day. I love Louis Armstrong. Philip Levine armstrongdayhour Change image and share on social
