Larry Levis

I love Larry Levis. For some weird reason his poetry sometimes reminds me of Pablo 

Neruda's--long, winding, loose but at the same time concise in its specificity. 

But Levis differs from Neruda in an important way; Neruda writes about fullness where 

Levis writes about absence. And this is partly what is so haunting about his work. 



"Sometimes, I go out into this yard at night, 
And stare through the wet branches of an oak 
In winter, & realize I am looking at the stars
Again. A thin haze of them, shining 
And persisting."

-from "Winter Stars"




Also:



"Then, everything slept.

The sky & the fields slept all the way to the Pacific,

And the houses slept.

The orchards blackened in their sleep,

And, outside my window, the aging Palomino slept

Standing up in the moonlight, with one rear hoof slightly cocked,

And the moonlight slept.

The white dust slept between the rows of vines,

And the quail slept perfectly, like untouched triangles.

The hawk slept alone, apart from this world. . . .

. . . And the prostitutes slept, as always,

With the small-time businessmen, their hair smelling of pomade,

Who did not dream.

Dice slept in the hands of the town’s one gambler, & outside

His window, the brown grass slept,

And beyond that, in a low stand of trees, ashes slept. . . . 
"

-from "The Cry"

And just to contrast, here's Neruda:

I do not love you except because I love you;
I go from loving to not loving you,
From waiting to not waiting for you
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;
I hate you deeply, and hating you
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume
My heart with its cruel
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood. 

Pablo Neruda

While Neruda looks at what is there (love), Levis prefers tackling what's unsaid, unseen, etc. "Sometimes, I go out into this yard at night,/...and realize I am looking at the stars/Again" 

On a more technical level, in terms of language, you can see that they both use a lot of repetition, Neruda's "waiting to not waiting for you", and Levis's "Standing up in the moonlight.../
And the moonlight slept." This repetition lends a flow to the otherwise long, winding verse. (You can see this more clearly in some of Neruda's other poetry, I chose this example more for the subject than the structure.)

Random connection, I know. But it's kind of fun to contrast them.