Swirl & Vortex

This monumental volume of Levis’s collected works is a study in the development and deepening of his gifts, from his debut in 1972 to poems published following his death in 1996. Levis’s bruised, engrossing voice suggests the “long, volleying/ Echoes of billiards in the pool halls where/ I spent it all,” and a “solitude the world usually allows/ Only to kings & criminals.” To read the full sweep of his work is to see an increased expression of the inner life, a voice “full of dusk, and jail cells,/ And bird calls.” What stays consistent is the poet’s vision of ordinary failure and his thwarted quest for reparation, whether in poems about the self, or in his character- and voice-driven work. Throughout, a wounded, self-deceiving faith is on display: “I got it all wrong./ I wound up believing in words the way a scientist/ Believes in carbon, after death.” Levis comes across as unfailingly honest in his self-interrogation, even in the most vulnerable, broken moments: “Out here, I can say anything.” He describes a knife used for grape-picking as “silver from so many sharpenings,” a phrase that could apply to his writing. It’s an essential celebration of a poet of tremendous power. (Feb.)