Emily M.'s response to Levis

Levis’s writing did not seem like it would be overly challenging when I first glanced at it; it looked straightforward. In retrospect, maybe this is why I had such difficulty making sense of what he wanted me to get out of it, or if it was meant to be open to interpretation. His writing style was formal in looks alone, proper punctuation, full sentences (although there were run-ons) and correct capitalization, but that was as far as it went. Levis’s sentences might have been complete thoughts, often times however they made little sense in context and alone. The poems worked as a whole, taking a section here or there rarely allowed the reader to gain meaning, it was only in its full being that I felt I understood what was going on. As with other poets we have read this meant reading closely, and multiple times, and even then, there were questions left unanswered. This was both a charming and frustrating quality for me, while I enjoyed going in depth I struggled with not being able to pin down his meanings and references.

Levis used a great deal of the outside world in his poems, and these references came from all over. I found that these little allusions were similar to the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland, they lead down twisted paths where we encountered knew knowledge, that didn’t quite fit with what we believed the poem to be about. These hints lead us deeper, while sometimes the pieces fit together (easily or with a little work); other times they were dead ends. What I found interesting about Levis’s use of references was that they often fit in the same categories as his other poems. Some of the categories I came up with included, cultural/political, his own poems, outside art (paintings, poets etc.), and faith (religion)/death, it seemed to be a pattern throughout the book which I found noteworthy. I am not sure if this was an accident of Levis’s part, or if it was intentional but going through the book, it was clearly that he had developed somewhat of a theme in his work beyond the use of Elegy. He also does create some powerful images that are more often than not dark. His focus on death and the afterlife were the most prevalent in the book especially in the second section.

Our first class after reading Levis, we discussed his first poem in depth. We went over its meaning and format, and discussed the importance the mulberry tree and his use of the Latin language. Appropriately, the final page of his work included both, although he did not arrange these pieces himself it I found it a fitting ending. The final poem summed up his work, full of references, language that required thought, questions, metaphors and reality. Overall Levis does challenge the traditional idea of poetry, and forces his readers to think about reading in a new way. His work is at times confusing, but always interesting and it was very enojyable to read.