18:3-4 Spring-Summer 1966

DENISE LEVERTOV

The Postcards: A Triptych

Denise Levertov is an English-born poet who emigrated to the United States in 1948. The Spring-Summer 1966 issue of Chicago Review featured two poems, a short piece of fiction, and pages from her notebooks; in the latter, she discusses the poetics of Charles Olson who (with other Black Mountain poets such as Robert Duncan and Robert Creeley) had a great influence on her work. Duncan in particular encouraged her exploration of issues to women, and she did so by addressing female mythological figures. “The Postcards: A Triptych,” included here, is one example of this kind of meditation; it has subsequently appeared in her collection, The Sorrow Dance (1967), and in her Poems: 1960-1967 (1967).

[DN, 1996]

Copyright © 1968 by Denise Levertov. Reprinted by permission of New Directions.

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