Larry Levis

Biography

Larry Levis (1946 – 1996) was the author of eight poetry collections. His first book of poems, Wrecking Crew (Pittsburgh, 1972), won the United States award from the International Poetry Forum. His work also received the Lamont Poetry Selection from the American Academy of Poets and won the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. Levis received three fellowships from the NEA, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a YM-YWHA Discovery Award. He was an English professor at Virginia Commonwealth University from 1992 until his death.

See Work

POETRY / Winter 1997

Elegy for Poe With the Music of A Carnival Inside It

By Larry Levis

There is this sunny place where I imagine him.
A park on a hill whose grass wants to turn
Into dust, & would do so if it weren’t