Full Circle: Buddhist Meditation Teacher Returns to Poetry

by Marcia Z. Nelson, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 10/31/2007

At age 70, Buddhist meditation teacher and writer Stephen Levine is back to where he began his writing career with Breaking the Drought: Visions of Grace (Larson Publications, Nov.), a book of poetry. His first book of poetry, A Resonance of Hope, appeared in 1959. In between those two volumes, he taught meditation in prison and spent more than 30 years working with the dying and grieving. He also wrote a number of books—A Gradual Awakening and A Year to Live, among others—that together have sold more than a million copies.

From his perspective, his work is all of a piece. "I was working with poetry, and through my spiritual practices was drawn into serving others with those techniques," said Levine. "All the books about working with dying, grieving or meditation had poems that I had written." Not surprisingly then, his book has spoken across specialties, drawing endorsements from Buddhists, the poet Robert Bly, and John Fox, director of the Institute of Poetic Medicine, which promotes poetry and the expressive arts for mind and body healing.

Levine spoke to RBL from a restaurant near his home in the mountains of northern New Mexico, since his residence adjoining the Carson National Forest is too remote to get a reliable telephone signal. He expects that people will receive the newest book as another form of teaching. Given his life journey, the art within his poetry is not merely aesthetic. "The community of people who are looking to the intuitive to find out their true nature gathers around poetry," he said. "It ain't just art."

Levine has retired from working with patients, but continues writing. His next book is a collection of animal stories, comparable to the Jataka Tales, folk stories about the Buddha. He will also travel a little within New Mexico to support his newest book. "I haven't done poetry readings in so long I'm looking forward to it," Levine said.