Vox Populi
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Larry Levis: The Map
Applying to Heavy Equipment School
I marched farther into the Great Plains
And refused to come out.
I threw up a few scaffolds of disinterest.
Around me in the fields, the hogs grunted
And lay on their sides.
You came with a little water and went away.
The glass is still on the table,
And the paper,
And the burned scaffolds.
*
You were bent over the sink, washing your stockings.
I came up behind you like the night sky behind the town.
You stood frowning at your knuckles
And did not speak.
*
At night I lie still, like Bolivia.
My furnaces turn blue.
My forests go dark.
You are a low range of hills, a Paraguay.
Now the clouds cover us both.
It is raining and the movie houses are open.
~~~
From The Afterlife (University of Iowa Press, 1977). Included in Vox Populi with permission.
Larry Levis (1946 – 1996) grew up driving a tractor, picking grapes, and pruning vines in Selma, California, a small fruit-growing town in the San Joaquin Valley. He published five award-winning books of poetry during his lifetime. Since his death from a heart attack caused by a cocaine overdose, three more volumes of his poetry, along with a book of essays, have been published to general acclaim.
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The scaffolds. Having lived in Corcoran ( before the prison), also in the Central Valley with Selma, I can feel the presence of the valley in his poem.
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Yes, he has the feel of the Central Valley in his poetry.
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Two people, Iowa, South America, burning mood, and so many possibilities in this earlier poem of Larry’s. Thank you.
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Thank you for your comments, Marty.
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I, too, am a sporadic reader of his work. I have been growing into so many North American poets over the last years. Larry Levis is a tremendous discovery for me. I have to inhale a book or too. “You stood frowning at your knuckles / And did not speak.” That is a long story, and I remember it.
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Yes, Levis can tell a whole story in one or two lines.
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Ah, these two in the poem, painfully separate, yet both under the clouds– an almost bodiless connection.
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There is a dark sky menace here and then the retreat, yet the power is barely tamped down, especially since the language is so powerful.
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‘Dark Sky Menace.’ I like that phrase, especially as a description of Levis’s poems. Thank you.
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Perfect evocation in the poem and in your comment.Thank you.
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Like Sean — I’m a huge fan of Larry Levis. He was a friend of mine — Larry the distracted, Larry who could be so funny, Larry the shy one, Larry the so brilliantly talented one! I never, never tire of reading him. My favorite books of his are Winter Stars and The Widening Spell of the Leaves. He’s one of those poets I need to return to many times a year.
The good news is that Graywolf Press will publish his Collected, entitled Swirl and Vortex in 2026, edited by David St John. How precious that book will be to me!
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I love his poems, especially the brilliant images and mysterious ways he undermines my left brain logic. Having only read him in a scattered way, I’m gonna find the two books of his you mention. I look forward to some creative work with a strong poet. Thanks for your comment, as always. You’ve broadened my ways of looking at the world.
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Graywolf or Pitt?
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Love it!
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Me too, Jason. Levis is one of my faves.
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I have to read a Levis poem several times before something sinks in, but when it does I think, Oh, how amazing this is.
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My experience as well, Marc. Thank you.
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He keeps me in awe!
I read him yesterday in a Cafe where I ordered Coffee and a Cuban sandwich, the ingredients prescriptive and acculturated as the lines of a Levis poem—melding its flavors together in the exotic warmth of his soul.
He owns the only map of his terrain, place next door to your life you’ve never been. I adore him!
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Sean, thank you so much for your enthusiastic and inventive praise of VP poets! I first encountered Levis in grad school shortly after The Afterlife was published. I remember being puzzled and delighted by this poem, and I’ve been in awe of his work ever since.
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