Morning is exhaustion, tranquilizers, gasoline,
the screamings of frozen bearings,
the failures of will, the TV talking to itself.
Levine is a ferociously urban poet who will never be confused with a 19th century American Transcendentalist or British Romantic. Not for him the dozen lines of verse dedicated to a dandelion; his is the poetry of modern industrial man. Which is not to suggest he is above transcendently romantic irony. As in title a poem “Clouds” and then diving headlong into the world of 20th century inner city existence.
No. Not this pig.
When Levine does turn his attention to the natural world, it is through the eyes of the urban consciousness. In this case of this poem, it is actually through the eyes of a pig with an urban consciousness that is well aware of the purpose he is supposed to serve in his life; one that does not involve running free and wild, but rather winding up as someone’s dinner. But he is too smart for that. He is made for better things than that. And so with a defiance that speaks beyond swine and to a larger symbolic meaning of man’s own dignity, he ferociously denies even the possibility of allowing someone other than himself to define his fate.
They lion grow.
The four repetitions of this phrase at the end of the first four stanzas of the poem is an example of a literary device called anaphora. Which is really just a fancy word for repetition of a phrase with the intent of gaining power. The lion is a symbol of power and strength going back to ancient times, but the combination of the syllables with the world “grow” lends it a double meaning. The poem was written in response to the racial tensions simmering in Detroit which led to full-scale rioting in 1967 and is a representation of the fury, enduring patience and indomitable will to survive and thrive.
Take this quiet woman, she has been
standing before a polishing wheel
for over three hours, and she lacks
twenty minutes before she can take
a lunch break. Is she a woman?
This passage is the opening of the poem and it continues on this way through to the end. The effect of being constructed as long, narrow block of text with no separations into stanzas allow it to be read breathlessly, forcing the reader to share the same deadened atmosphere in the close quarters of desperation as the subject of the verse.
A good man is seized by the police
and spirited away. Months later
someone brags that he shot him once
through the back of the head
with a Walther 7.65, and his life
ended just there. Those who loved
him go on searching the cafés
in the Barrio Chino or the bars
near the harbor.
In addition to Detroit, Spain is a significant setting for much of Levine’s poetry, especially Spain during the Franco regime. Levine wrote several poems that take up the idealism of the rebellious anarchists and the tragic consequences for many resulting from the Spanish Civil War and the gruesome crackdown of the fascists.
