A Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis. This item is unavailable.A Condition of the Spirit: The Life and Work of Larry Levis

The untimely death of Larry Levis in 1996 left the world of American poetry stunned and dismayed. His work was of such depth and such amazing resonance, that it was admired and studied by an entire generation of poets and readers, regardless of esthetic or cultural predispositions. Levis's poems crossed borders, broke down barriers, and invited a sharing of the strange, sweet loneliness of being that is the fundamental human lot. A Condition of the Spirit brings together reviews, essays, interviews, and mediations by more than forty American poets profoundly affected by Levis's life and work. But that's not all: the book also contains twelve previously uncollected essays by Levis himself, making it a handbook for the study of the poet's thinking on the craft of poetry and the craft of life. Contributors to the collection include Philip Levine, Charles Wright, Diane Wakoski, Stephen Dunn, David St. John, Peter Everwine, Dave Smith, Stephen Sandy, Nancy Eimers, Peter Stitt, David Wojahn, Paul Zimmer, Sandra Gilbert, David Young, and Gerald Stern.

CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY teaches in the creative writing department at the University of California, Riverside. He has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, most recently in 2001; a Fulbright Award to Yugoslavia; and four Pushcart Pries. Among his twelve books of poetry are Closer to Home (2003) and Star Apocrypha (2001). ALEXANDER LONG's poems, essays and book reviews have appeared in American Writers, Quarterly West, Pleiades, Third Coast and 5am. He lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he makes his living as a teacher and musician.