Philip Levine

Levine’s poetry was interesting. I really had a hard time reading “Animals are Passing from Our Lives” and“ They Feed Lion,” the animal slaughter references are a little too much for me.

However, I loved reading “Fear and Fame!” The text notes that Levine: “took a number of working-class jobs; those, and the ruined industrial landscape of Detroit, helped shape the settings and political loyalties of his poems (925).” The job described in this poem seems extremely difficult and dangerous. “Then to arise and dress again in the costume of my trade for the second time that night, stiffened by the knowledge that to descend and rise up from the other world merely once in eight hours is half what it takes to be known among women and men (932).” It seems like no one really appreciated the hard job he had. “Oddly enough no one welcomed me back…” He couldn’t be known or acknowledged for what he did.