Philip Levine

Philip Levine (January 10, 1928 – February 14, 2015) was an American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for more than thirty years in the English department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well. He served on the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets from 2000 to 2006,

Biography Philip Levine grew up in industrial Detroit, the second of three sons and the first of identical twins of Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Harry Levine, owned a used auto parts business, his mother, Esther Priscol (Pryszkulnik) Levine, was a bookseller. In high school, a teacher told him, "You write like an angel. Why don't you think about becoming a writer?" At this point, he was already working at night in auto factories, though he was just 14 years old. Detroit Central High School graduated him in 1946, and he went to college at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, where he began to write poetry, encouraged by his mother, to whom he dedicated the book of poems The Mercy. Levine earned his A.B. in 1950 and went to work for Chevrolet and Cadillac in what he called "stupid jobs."

In 1953, he attended the University of Iowa without registering, studying with, among others, poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman, the latter of whom Levine called his "one great mentor."

In 1954, he earned a mail-order master's degree with a thesis on John Keats' "Ode to Indolence," and married actress Frances J. Artley.

Levine and his wife had made their homes in Fresno and Brooklyn Heights. He died of pancreatic cancer on February 14, 2015, at age 87.

Work The familial, social, and economic world of twentieth-century Detroit is one of the major subjects of Levine's work. His portraits of working-class Americans and his continuous examination of his Jewish immigrant inheritance (both based on real life and described through fictional characters) has left a testimony of mid-twentieth century American life. In 1968, Levine signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse to make tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.

In his first two books, Levine was somewhat traditional in form and relatively constrained in expression. Among those celebrating Levine's career by reading Levine's work were Yusef Komunyakaa, Galway Kinnell, E. L. Doctorow, Charles Wright, Jean Valentine and Sharon Olds.

Awards 1973 – American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, Frank O'Hara Prize, Guggenheim Foundation fellowship – Ashes: Poems New and Old and Los Angeles Times Book Prize – What Work Is 1995 – Pulitzer Prize for Poetry – The Simple Truth (1994)