[New-Poetry] philip levine

[Anny Ballardini]

I received a couple of days ago:
THE BREAD OF TIME by philip levine
I put it in my bag and today I finally had a couple of minutes to read a couple of pages. I could not but think of this list when I read the following:

At first I was surprised by how much pleasure the writing of these pieces gave me, but I soon realized it was that pleasure that kept me writing. My hope for this book is that my readers will share that pleasure. 

page 4:
Pound himself showed Ford Madox Ford some early verse, serious stuff, and Fordie laughed so hard upon reading the work he actually fell on the floor and "rolled around on it squealing with hilarity at the poems."  Pound said that Ford's laughter saved him two years of work in the wrong direction. 

Fixing the Foot: On Rhythm

                        FOR LEJAN KWINT

Yesterday I heard a Dutch doctor talking to a 
small girl who had cut her foot, not seriously,
and was very frightened by the sight of her
own blood. "Nay! Nay!" he said over and over.
I could hear him quite distinctly through the
wall that separated us, and his voice was strong 
and calm, he spoke very slowly and seemed
never to stop speaking, almost as though he
were chanting, never too loud or too soft. her
voice, which had been explosive and shrill at
first, gradually softened until I could no longer
make it out as he went on talking and, I sup-
posed, working. Then a silence, and he said,
"Ah" and some words I could not understand.
I imagined him stepping spryly back to survey
his work. And then another voice, silent before,
the girl's father, thanking him, and then the
girl thanking him, now in a child's voice. A 
door opening and closing. And it was over.

                    AMSTERDAM, JUNE, 1974


Anny Ballardini
http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! 
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