Publisher's Synopsis
Philip Levine eulogized Larry Levis by calling him ""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 for as long as poetry matters."" This paperback edition of The Selected Levis has been expanded to include poems from Elegy, Levis's last (and posthumous) collection. from ""At the Grave of My Guardian Angel: St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans"" But it's all or nothing in this life; it's smallpox, quicklime, & fire. It's the extinct whitling of an infantry; it is all the faded rosettes of blood Turning into this amnesia of billboards & the ceaseless hunh? of traffic. It goes on & I go with it; it spreads into the sun & air & throws out a fast shade That will never sleep and I go with it; it breaks Lincoln & Poe into small drops of oil spreading Into endless swirls on the water, & I recognize the pattern.
