Larry Levis (1946-1996) was the award-winning author of five poetry collections during his lifetime, including Winter Stars and The Widening Spell of the Leaves, and the posthumous collections Elegy and The Selected Levis.
"To hold a new collection of poems by Larry Levis is nearly
miraculous. The Darkening Trapeze arrived as an immeasurable gift.
. . . He has left us with a body of work that aspires to bring us
nearer, if only momentarily, to a kind of sublime silence. For
though Levis's most achieved poems are challenging and
heartbreaking, readers will always know that they have traveled to
the brink in the company of a pilgrim who was seeking nothing less
than the unknowable itself, the lacuna at the core of being, the
the."--Los Angeles Review of Books "[The Darkening Trapeze] offers
an extraordinary look at the never-before-published works of this
much-loved poet. Expertly edited by poet David St. John, his
longtime friend, the Levis we know and admire . . . is clearly
evident here. . . . Riveting, marking the posthumous return of a
literary hero."--Publishers Weekly "A strikingly self-conscious
collection, a book whose lyrical depth and sweeping beauty is
checked by gossip, unflattering confessions, jokes, and
self-deprecation at every turn."--Ploughshares "The Darkening
Trapeze is an invaluable addition to Mr. Levis's oeuvre, but also a
critical addition to 20th century American poetry. It does what
poetry is supposed to do, which is to enrich our lives by looking
at the world around us, capturing that world on the page, and make
us better, more grateful human beings."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"There are off-handed profundities and fresh phrasings, perfect
vulnerabilities and hymns to the imperfect world. There are true
poems."--The Hairsplitter "The Darkening Trapeze is truly a gift. .
. . The poems are staggering in their beauty, wisdom, and
captivation."--The Rumpus "[Larry Levis'] work in The Darkening
Trapeze continually discovers new modes of connection, new ways to
surprise his readers. . . . His poems open wide and reach outwards.
Spiraling out and circling back, they incorporate dialogue,
extended scenes, and repeating motifs. . . . Their discoveries are
startlingly genuine. Indeed, coming twenty years after his death,
this book itself feels like a discovery. An essential addition to
his legacy, and a great starting place for new readers, it's easily
among his best work."--Pleiades "Reading The Darkening Trapeze is
an absorbing and an oddly reassuring experience. Levis is a
marvelous performer, one who can smile and shoot the breeze and
then suddenly terrify or astound."--The Smart Set "As long as
poetry is being discussed, Larry Levis will be discussed. He's one
of the finest, if not the finest, writers of our time."--Bonnie
Hearn Hill "I can't think of any writer whose body of work has
meant more to me as a reader than that which Larry Levis left
behind. From the first time I read him, mesmerized by the
staggeringly beautiful last lines of 'Slow Child with a Book of
Birds, ' his voice became a constant companion to me, regardless of
whatever distance there might be between myself and where his books
sat on my shelf. That voice--stoic, curious, sad, funny, and above
all, singularly humane--was one that I had accepted I would not
hear again, but was grateful to have heard at all. After reading
The Darkening Trapeze, I can only say what a great and unexpected
gift it is to hear that voice again."--Kevin Powers, author of The
Yellow Birds
"Since his death in 1996, the work of Larry Levis has steadily
gathered a kind of literary cult around itself, a passionate crowd
of new and old readers. Levis's poetry-philosophical and
streetwise, baroque in its textures, syntax, and imagery-earns its
charisma. But the deeper reason for the devotion of his readers may
be our contemporary starvation for mystery. Levis's poems radiate
the conviction that mystery is elemental in the world, and they
never reduce that numinous dimension by over-explaining it. The
reveries and visions in The Darkening Trapeze will provide readers
with a fabulous supply of never-before-published work-a rich,
surprising addition to the Levis legacy."--Tony Hoagland "Larry
Levis was a master of lyrical thinking. He was our Whitman for the
late twentieth century, a conduit of the surreal and real, the past
and present, the sung and unsung flowing in the same narrative
current. As in the stunning 'Poem Ending with a Hotel on Fire, '
The Darkening Trapeze is both brash and elegiac; its meditative
darkness always has a restless flame at its heart. These
extraordinary last poems give us one more occasion to celebrate one
of contemporary poetry's most unique and luminous
voices."--Terrance Hayes "Who would have imagined we had yet to
receive a gift of this magnitude from the poet Larry Levis? Nothing
in these pages suggests the broken remains of 'previously
uncollected' work so many writers must endure by way of posthumous
tribute. In poem after thrilling poem, Levis manifests the deftness
and the daring, the pity and the penetration that made him of such
consequence to late twentieth-century American poetry and make him,
freshly, of such consequence now. Brilliantly edited by David St.
John, this book will change the way we read and write and think and
feel."--Linda Gregerson
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