University Archives Henry Madden Library California

UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

HENRY MADDEN LIBRARY CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FRESNO

PHILIP LEVINE (1928- )

COLLECTION, 1955-2009 9.75 linear feet

ACQUISITION: The collection was donated in part by Philip Levine in 2009 with additional material purchased from Christopher Buckley in 2011.

ACCESS: The collection is open for research.

PROCESSED BY: Althea Potzernitz, 2012.

Philip Levine Collection

Biography

Philip Levine was born on January 10, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan. After growing up during the Great Depression, Levine went on to write about the struggles of the working class that his family experienced firsthand. The tumult of the Spanish Civil War also profoundly influenced his early writing. Levine first began writing poetry while attending Wayne University where he graduated from in 1950 with a BA and later his MA in 1955 after writing his thesis on the poetry of John Keats. Levine also attended the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1953 and earned his MFA in 1957. During this time, Levine married his first wife Patty Kanterman in 1951 but they divorced two years later. He went on to settle down with his second wife Frances J. Artley in 1954. After a short stint teaching in Iowa City, he moved his family out to California in 1957 and studied at Stanford for a year where he received the Jones Fellowship in Poetry. Levine and his family relocated and settled in the Central Valley in 1958 where he began his teaching career at California State University, Fresno.

Throughout his illustrious career, Philip Levine published over twenty books of collected poetry and contributed many of his poems to dozens of periodicals. In addition to this, he has also won several prestigious awards in his field. In 1973, the Frank O’Hara Prize was awarded to Levine, as well as a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Four years later, Levine earned the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his book The Names of the Lost. In 1978, he was bestowed with the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize and the year after that, he was presented with the National Book Critics Circle Award for Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years from Somewhere. In 1980, Levine received another accolade for Ashes: Poems New and Old, this time from National Book Award for Poetry; he was also awarded with another Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. The next year, Poetry magazine presented him with the Levinson Prize. Six years later, Levine earned the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Modern Poetry Association and the American Council for the Arts. During the mid-eighties, he served as Chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts for two years. In the early 1990s, Levine was awarded with the National Book Award for Poetry and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for What Work Is.

In 1992, Levine retired from California State University, Fresno where he had taught in the English Department for over thirty years. In addition to his time at Fresno State, Levine taught at several other universities, including Vassar, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, Tufts, UC Berkeley, and New York University. Levine spent two years at NYU, where he served as the Distinguished Poet in Residence for the Creative Writing Program. In 1995, Levine won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book The Simple Truth. Levine was elected Chancellor by the Academy of American Poets in 2000. Over a decade later, the Library of Congress chose Philip Levine as the 18th U.S. Poet Laureate in 2011. His poetry continues to have a lasting impact on young writers and his peers alike. Levine and his wife divide their time between Brooklyn, NY and Fresno, CA.

2 Philip Levine Collection

Scope and Content Note

The Philip Levine collection measures ten linear feet and dates from 1955 to 2009. The collection is arranged in two series: Correspondence and Poetry. The series titled Poetry contains several sub series, which separate published poetry from ephemera.

The Correspondence series (1976-2008) contains both personal and professional correspondence. There are three subseries, arranged by recipient: Christopher Buckley, close friend and former colleague of Levine; Ernest Trejo, writing partner of Levine; and various university colleagues and other professional contemporaries. The Buckley correspondence dates from 1995 to 2008; these letters are personal in nature but they also include professional and academic attributes. The Trejo correspondence dates from 1976 to 1978; these letters reference work by fellow poet Jamie Sabines that Levine and Trejo were editing and translating. Their efforts culminated in Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines. The Professional subseries dates from 1979 to 2008 and includes letters to several academic institutions, publishing houses, and other esteemed colleagues, including fellow Central Valley poet Gary Soto. The letters in this series are regarding teaching positions, publishing work, and awarded prizes.

The Poetry series (1955-2009 and undated) contains published and unpublished poetry by Philip Levine as well as material about Levine written by his colleagues. There are several subseries: anthologies and books; edited and selected by Levine; inscribed to Levine; invitations, programs, and readings; periodicals; and single poems.

3 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 1 Correspondence Christopher Buckley, 1999-2008 (5 folders) Ernesto Trejo, 1976-1978 Professional letters, 1979-2008

Poetry Anthologies and books Autobiodiversity: True Stories from ZYZZYVA, 2005 The Best American Poetry, 1988, 1998 (2 folders) The Best American Spiritual Writing, 2002 Blue, 1989 Break Out! Songs and Poems for People on the Move, 1975 Breath, 2004 Brother Songs: A Male Anthology of Poetry, 1979 Dreaming in Swedish, 1994 Earth, Stars, and Writers, 1992 (2 copies) Five Detroits, 1970 45 Contemporary Poems: The Creative Process, 1985 The Geography of Home: California’s Poetry of Place, 1999

Box 2 The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Annual Report, 1996 Graffiti Rag, 1995 Hard Choices, 1996 Homage to Baudelaire: On the Centennial of Les Fleurs Du Mal, 1957 The Language Problem, 2008 Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, 2004 Naming, 2004 The National Book Awards, 1992 New American Poetry, 1973 New Selected Poems, 1991 News of the World, 2009 The Ohio Review: New and Selected; Volume I: A-L, 2000 On The Edge, 1964 On The Edge and Over, 1976 On The Other Side of That Window, 1993 On The Poetry of Philip Levine, 1994 The Persistence of Poetry: Bicentennial Essays on Keats, 1998 Peter’s Gift, 1997

4 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 2 (cont.) Poetry (cont.) Anthologies and books (cont.) Pili’s Wall, 1971 Poetic Voices without Borders 2, 2009 Potlatcxh, 1994 Praise, 2000 Red Dust, 1971 Scarecrow Poetry: The Muse in Post-Middle Age, 1994

Box 3 Selected Poems, 1984 Sextet One: Six Powerful American Voices, 1996 60 on the 60s: A Decade’s History in Verse, 1969 Smoke, 1997 Story Story Story: Conversations with American Authors, 1999 Teaching Excellence, 1998 Thistles, 1970 (2 copies) Unselected Poems, 1997 (2 copies) A Walk with Tom Jefferson, 1988 The Way We Work, 2008 The Writing Path 2, 1996 Edited and selected by Levine Silks, 1980 Tarumba Collection, 1976-1978 Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines, 1979 Inscribed to Levine Poetry East, 1989 Time to Destroy/Discover, 1972 Invitations, programs, and readings The Academy of American Poets Awards Ceremony, 1997 The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, 1996 A Memorial Celebration for Larry P. Levis, 1996 Philip Levine with David St. John: Readings and Conversations, 1994 A Poetry Reading for Peace in Vietnam, 1967 The Poetry Society of America in Los Angeles: Readings at The Getty, 1999 Santa Barbara Writers Conference, 2008 A 75th Birthday Celebration for Philip Levine, 2003 Sources, 1981

5 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 3 (cont.) Poetry (cont.) Periodicals American Poet, 1996-1999 American Poetry, 1986 American Scholar, 1998

Box 4 Antæus, 1973-1974 (2 folders) The Antioch Review, 1980, 1990 Arete: Forum for Thought, 1989 [oversize: in box 11] ARK/Angel Review, 1993 The Atlantic Monthly, 1973, 1994, 1997 Backwash Magazine, 1971 Boulevard, 1994 Brick, 1994 Brilliant Corners, 1996, 2000 Bulletin de Lettre Internationale, 1996 Caliban, 1987 California Crossroads, 1965 Carolina Quarterly, 1981 Chicago Review, 1956, 1996 Close-Up, 1985 Colorado Review, 1993-1994 Commentary, 1960 Common Boundary, 1996 Contact, 1960, 1962 Crazyhorse, 1988 Detroit Discovery, 1973 Dissent, 1996

Box 5 DoubleTake, 1995-1996, 1997, 1999, 2001 (2 folders) Epoch, 1957 FGL, 1992 Field, 1973 First of the Month, 1998-2005 Five Points, 1999, 2003, 2008 (2 folders) Fraza, 2006 The Georgia Review, 1978, 1992, 2001, 2005, 2008 (3 folders)

6 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 5 (cont.) Poetry (cont.) Periodicals (cont.) The Gettysburg Review, 1989, 1991 (2 folders) Great River Review, 1997 Gulf Coast, 1998 Harper’s, 1978 Hayden’s Ferry Review, 1990 The Hollins Critic, 1975 Hour Detroit, 1996 [oversize: in box 11] The Hudson Review, 1966-1967, 1992

Box 6 Image, 1996, 1998 Indiana Review, 1994 Inquiry Magazine, 1978 The Iowa Review, 1970-1971, 1976-1978 (2 folders) Jeopardy, 1970 Kayak, 1975 The Kenyon Review, 1989, 1992, 1999 (3 folders) Los Angeles Times Book Review, 2003 Mandarin Oriental, 1987 MᾹNOA, 1991 Marxist Perspectives, 1979 Metre, 2000 Michigan Quarterly Review, 1980-1986, 1990, 1997, 2000, 2009 (6 folders)

Box 7 Mill Mountain Review, 1971 The Minnesota Review, 1997 The Missouri Review, 1979 Monthly Detroit, 1979 The Nation, 1996, 1999 Nebraska Humanities, 1993 New England Review, 1992-1994 (5 folders) The New Orleans Poetry Journal, 1955, 1958 The New York Quarterly, 1971 The New York Review of Books, 1976 The New Yorker, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 1998-2003, 2008 (4 folders)

7 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 7 (cont.) Poetry (cont.) Periodicals (cont.) The Normal School, 2008 The North American Review, 1964, 1965 Northwest Review, 1967-1968 Object Lesson, 1996 The Ohio Review, 1975, 1978, 1981 (2 folders)

Box 8 Ontario Review, 1999 The Oxford Quarterly, 1997 The Paris Review, 1981, 1984, 1987-1988, 1994 (5 folders) Parnassus: Poetry in Review, 1977-1978 (2 folders) Partisan Review, 1974, 1986 Paterson Literary Review, 2005 Pequod, 1986 Ploughshares, 1995-1996, 2007-2008 (2 folders) Poetry, 1960-1965, 1971-1972, 1977, 1980-1990, 1999 (2 folders)

Box 9 Poetry, 1960-1965, 1971-1972, 1977, 1980-1990, 1999 (4 folders) Poetry East, 1989 Poetry Northwest, 1960-1961, 1967 Poets and Writers, 2003 Potpourri, 1993 Press, 1996 Princeton University Library Chronicle, 1994 Quarry West, 1988 Quarterly West, 1996-1997, 2001-2002 (2 folders) River City, 1998 Sage, 1984 Saturday Review, 1981 Seizure Magazine, 1974 Solo, 1996 Southern Indiana Review, 1995 Southern Review, 2008 Spread, 2003 Stand, 1971-1972, 1976 Sumac, 1970

8 Philip Levine Collection

Box no. Description

Box 10 Poetry (cont.) Periodicals (cont.) Third Coast, 1999 The Threepenny Review, 1993-1994, 2005-2009 (3 folders) Tikkun, 2006 Translation, 1978 TransPacific, 1969, 1971-1972 Tri Quarterly, 1995-1996 The Vanderbilt Review, 2003 Verse, 1995 Verve, 1995 Washington Square, 1998 Western Humanities Review, 1987-1989, 1994, 1997 (3 folders) The Witness, 1994 The Writer’s Chronicle, 2003 Yes!, 2002 ZYZZYVZ, 1993 Single poems General, 1972-1973, 1988, 1995-2000, and undated Pennsylvania Pastoral, 2012 [oversize: in box 11]

Box 11 Oversize: Poetry Periodicals Arete: Forum for Thought, 1989 Hour Detroit, 1996 Single poems Pennsylvania Pastoral, 2012