Levine, Philip

On the Edge: Poems

Iowa City, IA: The Second Press, 1964. First Trade Edition. Trade Paperback. “He fears the tiger standing in his way. / The tiger takes its time, it smiles and growls. / Like moons, the two blank eyes tug at his bowels. / “God help me now,” is all that he can say. / “God help me now, how close I’ve come to God. / To love and to be loved, I’ve drunk for love. / Send me the faith of Paul, or send a dove.” / The tiger hears and stiffens like a rod. / At last the tiger leaps, and when it hits / a putrid surf breaks in the drunkard’s soul. / The tiger, done, returns to its patrol. / The world takes up its trades; the man his wits, / And, bottom up, he mumbles from the deep, / “Life was a dream, Oh, may this death be sleep.””--Philip Levine, “The Drunkard: From St. Ambrose,” pg. 12. Philip Levine (1928-2015) was a Detroit born poet best known for his poems on the working-class of Detroit. Often referred to as a “large, ironic Whitman of the industrial heartland,” Levine’s work is undeniably proletarian, dark, and unflinching. Time contributor Paul Gray called Levine’s speakers “guerrillas, trapped in an endless battle long after the war is lost.” This sense of defeat is particularly strong when the poet recalls scenes from his Detroit childhood, where unemployment and violence colored his life. But despite its painful material, Levine’s verse can also display a certain Whitman-esque joyfulness, and effulgence that betrays Levine’s literary inspirations in John Berryman (1914-1972), Robert Lowell (1917-1977), Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), and of course Walt Whitman (1819-1892). Levine won several prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Ruth Lilly Prize in Poetry and the Wallace Stevens Award. In 2006 he was elected as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and in 2011 was appointed poet laureate of the United States. Offered today is the 1963 debut collection of poetry On the Edge. Raw, visceral, concise, and bleeding with pathos, On the Edge is a collection of poetry that not only is indicative of what would become Levine’s signature poetic voice, but also a series of incredibly vivid portraits of working-class life in Detroit. As X. J. Kennedy of Poetry magazine says on the back cover, “On the Edge, the long awaited first book by Philip Levine, is another with virtues hard to make too much of. I can’t imagine that the ultimate anthology, Cold War American Poetry (or whatever the glum title) will be able to do without two or three poems from it.” From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), poet, editor, and professor in the University of Michigan Department of English Language and Literature. First trade format softcover edition, with reference to a previous limited hand printed edition the year prior. In relatively fine-very fine condition with minor wear to fine edges, first paste-down page through copyright page are loose/have come away from binding, and moderate staining/spotting/age-toning to front and back covers. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8505]

Price: $75.00