Philip Levine Quotes

I still have a feeling that I haven't written the best that I can write. I think all poets must feel this: that there is constantly something new to be discovered in the language. It's like a thrilling encounter, and you can find things.

As I look over my work, I mean every time I look over my early work, I see, yes, I could do that then and then I could do that and that... That may be the hardest thing for a writer, at least for a poet, to tell what the identity of his work is.

I began to imitate what I was reading, and I started to become a poet, even though what I was writing were not good poems.

I was 23 when I wrote 'Neighbors,' and I definitely look back at it now and cringe a little bit. I was trying to understand what drama was.

I love to read poetry but I haven't written anything that I'm willing to show anybody.

The idea that a poem was a made thing stayed with me, and I decided then that I wanted to be an artist, not just a diarist. So I put myself through a kind of apprenticeship in writing poetry, and I understood even then that my practice as a poet was deeply related to my reading.

What I wanted in life always was to write something as good as 'Pinocchio.' I wanted to write. I wanted to evolve. I wanted to grow.

I'm conscious of a series of circles working its way through my life. And at this particular moment I have come round to the beginning of my writing cycle. It begins with poetry. There's hardly a day that goes past on which I don't write poetry.

What I try to do is to go into a poem - and one writes them, of course, poem by poem - to go into each poem, first of all without having any sense whatsoever of where it's going to end up.

But most commonly, it's one poem that I work on with a lot of intensity.

Why does one always ask a writer why they stopped? I am sure everyone finds in any drawer a few dear poems.

I believe that I improve with every book I write - most writers will probably tell you the same thing. I'm still learning my craft and will be until the day I drop dead at my computer. In my opinion, art isn't something that can be perfected. There's always room for improvement.

I'm probably tougher on myself than I used to be. I'll revise my lyrics more. Part of that is working with the right people and producers who will say, 'How can you make that better?' Allowing yourself to collaborate with people will push you toward transcendence.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.

If you write enough, you begin to learn to do things. But in a way, you do start from zero each time.

I have to make myself write, sometimes. In the space between poems, you somehow forget how to do it, where to begin. It was good to be task - based for a while. I just came downstairs each day, picked the one I was going to do that day, and wrote.

I wrote 'Ava Wrestles the Alligator' when I was 22 or 23. These people and that world have been evolving in me for a while. It's such a shift not to be in that world.

I have a notebook with me all the time, and I begin scribbling a few words. When things are going well, the walk does not get anywhere; I finally just stop and write.

My first book was poetry, but I didn't write it first. I wrote it third. So my first two books were prose.

In life we try to grow and better ourselves. As an artist, I feel like I've grown tremendously.

I guess the thing that I'm most proud of is that I kept on writing poetry. I understand that poetry is sort of the source of everything I do. It's the source of my creativity.

Back when I taught middle school and wrote adult mysteries, my students often asked me why I wasn't writing for kids. I never had a good answer for them. It took me a long time to realize they were right.

It is not about writing those hits again. I am sure I could write them, but it is about the sensibilities.

It took me years of attempts and failed drafts before I finally wrote the elegies I needed to write.