John Perlman
Among the Consonants
AMONG THE CONSONANTS, by John Levy (Elizabeth Press, 1981)
A book comes out by a loved friend. Many poems you’ve seen, commented on, even quibbled over, but always unquestionably poetry of a high order, precise, human, humane and, most sustaining, with unsentimental gentleness, lyrics which give rise to distinct and personal accompanying tunes, born into the memory returning.
And yet, there are poems in the book, unseen before, which deepen those known. And you realize how he brings his soul up, into the poem, with what belief and hope for the kindness of others. The implicit, choiring question : see and know in likeness if we clearly love?
How many of us are given to moving from poem to poem, saying silent affirmations, yes and then here yes we do share that, that weight, that woe, that quality of light in lightness lifts us, beauty of the world, my friend ?
(Elizabeth Press books are available from SPD - see last page for details.)
Page(s) 96
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The