Philip Levine, via
If anyone ever wanted to acquaint himself with the gritty, mechanical kingdom of 1950s depressive Detroit, he should simply pick up any collection of Philip Levine’s (1928–2015) work and feel the exhaust from flames or beaded sweat dripping from some laborer’s brow almost instantaneously. Or one could have attended the memorial service held by Levine’s peers this past week at the Cooper Union where Levine’s sacred, suburban space was recreated and memorialized through a reading of his work. The memory of our 2011 Poet Laureate, who passed in February 2015, was cradled fondly in The Great Hall by poets, peers, and strangers alike, all somehow influenced by Levine’s expansive writing career. The lineup of friends who presented included Juan Felipe Herrera, Toi Derricotte, Dorianne Laux, Sharon Olds, Tom Sleigh, and others, and the night ended with a sentimental showing of Levine reading his piece “Burial Rites,” his wife, Fran, watching delicately from the front row. The lines, “Think of it/ my name, no longer a portion of me . . . the roots of the eucalyptus/ I planted in ’73/ a tiny me taking nothing/ giving nothing, free at last” managed to stir something in all of us as Levine’s voice hovered from the speakers and hung in the high ceilings. Perhaps it was a shared, sad gratitude for the late poet, or maybe it was the visceral, introspective response his work often conjures, a consideration of what we too will leave behind.