I still believe in this country, that it can fulfill the destiny Blake and Whitman envisioned. I still believe in American poetry.
Philip LevineMy sense of a poem - my notion of how you revise - is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote.
Philip LevineMy mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs.
Philip LevineCorruption is subtle, just like the Bible said. Many young poets have come to me and asked, How am I gonna make it? They feel, and often with considerable justice, that they are being overlooked while others with less talent are out there making careers for themselves. I always give the same advice. I say, Do it the hard way, and youโll always feel good about yourself. You write because you have to, and you get this unbelievable satisfaction from doing it well. Try to live on that as long as youโre able.
Philip Levine