Poetry Book Club: "The Selected Levis" by Larry Levis

This monthly book club, led by Doug Knowlton, is for those who like to read and discuss poetry. It celebrates the integral role of poets and poetry in life and literature. January's selection is The Selected Levis by Larry Levis - a haunting, expansive collection that traces the beauty and loneliness of American life. Edited by David St. John, these poems move through memory, class, and landscape with Levis's trademark clarity and compassion. Winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, it's a masterful introduction to one of our most enduring voices.

We meet in person in the loft of our store in The Mark building at 117 South Pineapple Avenue. The cost is your purchase of the book ($24), which can be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Edited and with an Afterword by David St. John

When Larry Levis died suddenly in 1996, Philip Levine wrote that he had years earlier recognized Levis as “the most gifted and determined young poet I have ever had the good fortune to have in one of my classes. . . . His early death is a staggering loss for our poetry, but what he left is a major achievement that will enrich our lives.” Each of his books was published to wide critical acclaim, and David St. John has collected together the best of his work from his first five books: Wrecking Crew (1972), Afterlife (1976), The Dollmaker’s Ghost (1981), Winter Stars (1985) and The Widening Spell of the Leaves (1991).

“It is not an exaggeration to say that the death of Larry Levis in 1996—; of a heart attack at 49—; sent a shock wave through the ranks of American poetry. Not only was Levis a good friend to many poets (not simply of his own generation but of many poets older and younger as well), his poetry had become a kind of touchstone for many of us, a source of special inspiration and awe. With Larry Levis’ death came the sense that an American original had been lost. . . . It is not at all paradoxical that he saw both the most intimate expressions of poetry and the grandest gestures of art, of language, as constituting individual acts of courage. One can only hope that, like such courage, Larry Levis’s remarkable poems will continue to live far into our literature.”—; from the Afterword, by David St. John

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Larry Levis was born in Fresno, California, in 1946. His first book of poems, Wrecking Crew, won the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum, and was published in the Pitt Poetry Series in 1972. His second book, The Afterlife, won the Lamont Award from the American Academy of Poets in 1976. In 1981, The Dollmaker’s Ghost was a winner of the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. Among his other awards were three fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Levis died in 1996.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

Get App

Host or Publisher Bookstore1Sarasota