Major American Poet Denise Levertov Dies Published 23 Volumes Of Poetry Since 1946

Denise Levertov, a major American poet and poetry theorist of this century, has died at age 74.

Levertov died Saturday at Swedish Hospital in Seattle from complications of lymphoma.

She published some 23 volumes of poetry since 1946, the last being “Sands of the Well” in 1996. She also published collections of essays, translated three volumes of poetry and edited other books.

“She’s part of a generation that I think is the most significant generation in poetry in the past 1,000 years - really,” said Sam Hamill, the poet and founding editor of Copper Canyon Press in Port Townsend.

Hamill, who knew and corresponded with Levertov for nearly 30 years, was referring to the generation that also produced W.S. Merwin, Hayden Carruth, Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Galway Kinnell, James Wright, Richard Hugo, James Merrill and Gary Snyder.

“And I think Denise, in many ways, was the most influential of any of (her generation),” added Hamill. “She became a kind of people’s poet.”

Levertov was born in 1923 in Ilford, Essex, England.

After World War II, Levertov married an American GI, Mitchell Goodman, who became a politically active writer and teacher. They moved to the United States in 1948. Levertov became a U.S. citizen in 1955.

Levertov and Goodman divorced in 1974, but remained friends.

She held visiting professorships at many colleges and was professor emerita at Stanford University, where she taught from 1981 to 1994. She moved to Seattle in 1989.

She won many awards, including the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, the Lenore Marshall Prize and the Lannan Award.