Denise Levertov

The poet I chose was one I'd never heard of before (which probably isn't saying much) by the name of Denise Levertov. She was born in 1923, and wrote many books of poetry. The poem I chose is from her book O Taste And See: New Poems, which was published in 1964 and featured a lot of her more feminist writing. The poem is called "The Secret"(http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178477):

The Secret

BY DENISE LEVERTOV

Two girls discover   

the secret of life   

in a sudden line of   

poetry.

I who don’t know the   

secret wrote   

the line. They   

told me

(through a third person)   

they had found it

but not what it was   

not even

what line it was. No doubt   

by now, more than a week   

later, they have forgotten   

the secret,

the line, the name of   

the poem. I love them   

for finding what   

I can’t find,

and for loving me   

for the line I wrote,   

and for forgetting it   

so that

a thousand times, till death   

finds them, they may   

discover it again, in other   

lines

in other   

happenings. And for   

wanting to know it,   

for

assuming there is   

such a secret, yes,   

for that   

most of all.

This poem was one I really liked, because it details something I actually do enjoy about poetry. Levertov uses fleeting stanzas and a motif of discovery to emphasize that the best thing about poetry is finding out an important truth over and over again. The stanzas are broken up because it relates back to her message. She enjoys the fact that as a poet, people can find messages even she didn't know were in there, and that even when they discover these truths, they are fleeting; "more than a week / later, they have forgotten / the secret" is, surprisingly, what Levertov loves about writing poetry. The repetition of the word "find" helps emphasize the message as well. The almost excessive use of "find" makes the reader believe that poetry is all about finding, about digging deeper into what subliminal messages could possibly exist. I agree with Levertov on this front, because I think it's cool to see people find things in your writing that you didn't see when you wrote it, whish is why I liked this poem so much.