In his third book of poems, Mark Levine continues his exploration of the rhythms and forms of memory. The Wilds is set in the border regions between natural and cultivated states, childhood and adulthood, past and present. "We were boys," says the speaker of the opening poem, "boyish, almost girls./Left alone on the roof, we would have dwindled." Austere and lyrical, the music of these poems resonates with echoes of poetic tradition-Wyatt, Jonson, Milton, Eliot-yet is singularly modern.
The Wilds
About the Book
Reviews
Praise for Enola Gay:"Mark Levine's poems conjure a post-cataclysmic, pre-apocalyptic world. Here things tend to be rusty, wet, subject to dry rot, incomplete, or just plain out of kilter. Reading Enola Gay is an unforgettable experience."—John Ashbery
"Mark Levine's poems meld wit with the profoundest gravity, peculiar narratives with linguistic precision, and hubris with sorrow. Read them."—Susan Wheeler, author of Ledger and Record Palace
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
1
Ontario
Quarry
Bering Strait
Arboretum
Grade Three
Two Women
Document
Then
2
Hand
Dock
Habitat
Animal
Insect
This Day Last Year in Yellowstone National Park
Nurse
Rent
Triangle
Remember
3
The Wilds
4
Song
Belongings
Early
Poem
Child’s Song
Night
Autumn
Refuge Event
Song
Willow