Philip Levine New U.S. Poet Laureate

The New York Times is reporting that the Library of Congress will name Philip Levine the new Poet Laureate of the United States today. James Billington, the librarian of Congress, is quoted in a description of Levine: “He’s the laureate, if you like, of the industrial heartland. It’s a very, very American voice.”

As I wrote in an article at One Poet’s Notes marking Levine’s 80th birthday in January of 2008, Philip Levine “was born in Detroit, Michigan. His upbringing among working-class immigrants and African Americans living under the rule of continuing racism forever shaped Levine’s view of the world. The family figures he knew as a boy in the urban landscape of Detroit and the young men he met as a worker in its automobile factories have been ever-present as personages in his poetry. Even today, his poems often read as elegant yet plain-spoken elegies giving tribute to those who were battered and scarred, who felt chronic pain suffered during everyday battles, or those outcasts and artists (particularly writers and jazz musicians) who lived on the edges of society, men and women he once knew and to whom he now has given voice, again and again.”

For more extensive and detailed commentary I have presented on Philip Levine and his poetry, I recommend readers visit the following: “Reading Philip Levine at Mother’s Day,” “Edgar Degas and Philip Levine,” “Philip Levine on His 80th Birthday,” "Philip Levine’s ‘What Work Is’ on Labor Day,” and “Philip Levine: Breath.”