Philip Levine

Back then, I couldn't have left a poem a year and gone back to it. ↗

— Philip Levine

#gone #i #left #poem #then

But I'm too old to be written about as a young poet. ↗

— Philip Levine

#i #old #poet #too #written

But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity. ↗

— Philip Levine

#i #intensity #lot #most #poem

For sure I once thought of myself as the poet who would save the ordinary from oblivion. ↗

— Philip Levine

#myself #oblivion #once #ordinary #poet

I have a sense that many Americans, especially those like me with European or foreign parents, feel they have to invent their families just as they have to invent themselves. ↗

— Philip Levine

#european #families #feel #foreign #i

I listen to jazz about three hours a day. I love Louis Armstrong. ↗

— Philip Levine

#armstrong #day #hours #i #i love

I realized poetry's the thing that I can do 'cause I can stick at it and work with tremendous intensity. ↗

— Philip Levine

#i #i can #intensity #poetry #realized

I started listening to music when I wrote when I had three sons at home. ↗

— Philip Levine

#home #i #listening #music #sons

I was very lucky to have a mother who encouraged me to become a poet. ↗

— Philip Levine

#encouraged #i #lucky #me #mother

I'm afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others. ↗

— Philip Levine

#find #god #i #live #maybe