Poet Philip Levine

WNYC has invited Pulitzer prize winning writer Philip Levine to be our poet in residence. Over the next two months, Levine will share some of his favorite poetry that resonate with current events or, perhaps, offer a brief respite from the news of the day. Today, an introduction to poetry.

In the autumn I teach poetry writing at New York University and wherever I go I am constantly asked the most irritating question in the world, "Can you teach people how to write poetry?" And the answer is kind of complex and it's hard to give... I mean you can't teach me, for example, to run the four minute mile. I mean you couldn't have done it when I was 18, you can hardly do it now that I'm 75. One of the things you can always teach though- if people are willing to learn or want to learn- is how to read poetry.

And this is by Billy Collins who is now the poet Laureate of the United States (god bless him); it's called "Introduction to Poetry"

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want then to water-ski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with a rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

For WNYC, I'm Phil Levine.

Poetry Links

Billy Collins
Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry
About the Poet Laureates
Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins' poem on poems.com
Introduction to Poetry
Billy Collins' poem on Poetry 180
poem-a-day
More on A Poem a Day for American High Schools

William Carlos Williams
Poets dot org
A bio of Williams and links to his poems
Modern American Poetry
More poems by Williams
"Spring And All"
essay on Williams' poem "Spring And All"

Alun Lewis
The Alun Lewis Page
For information on Alun Lewis
War Poetry
Alun Lewis' War Poems

Philip Levine
Alfred A Knopf on Philip Levine
Information on many of Levine's books
Philip Levine on the Internet Poetry Archive.
Read Levine's poetry and listen to Levine read his poetry

Galway Kinnell
Galway Kinnell Reads Walt Whitman
Kinnell reads Whitman's "To The States" and comments on it

General Poetry Links
The Leonard Lopate Show: Poetry Magazine
Hear Mr. Lopate talk about the 100 million-dollar donation from Ruth Lilly to Poetry Magazine
The Next Big Thing: Poetry Lives
Alice Quinn, poetry editor for the New Yorker and executive director of the Poetry Society of America, sorts through some entries to the Poetry in Motion Contest
e-poets Network Book of Voices
a list of poets and poems from the Chicago area-- you can listen to poets read their work
The Poetry Project
is at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, since 1966
Bartleby.com
A collection of books online, including a bounty of verse
An Audible Anthology
A collection of poems printed in the Atlantic Montly to read or listen to
Gumball Poetry
It's a zine, it's a website, it's a gumball machine that dispenses poetry!

A selection of Philip Levine's books

A New Selected Poems
Available for purchase at Amazon.com

The Simple Truth
Available for purchase at Amazon.com

The Mercy
Available for purchase at Amazon.com

What Work Is: Poems
Available for purchase at Amazon.com