blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsFall 2018  Vol. 17 No. 2
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Philip Levine
PHILIP LEVINE

Features
   The Poetry of Jazz   

Philip Levine (1928–2015) authored over sixteen collections of poetry throughout his career, including News of the World (2009), Breath (2004), and The Mercy (1999), all from Alfred A. Knopf. His collection The Simple Truth (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994) was the recipient of the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and What Work Is (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991) won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1991. Levine’s prose works include So Ask: Essays, Conversations, and Interviews (2002) and The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (1994), both from the University of Michigan Press. Levine also edited The Essential Keats (Ecco, 1987) and coedited and translated two books of poetry: Off the Map: Selected Poems of Gloria Fuertes (Wesleyan University Press, 1984) and Tarumba: The Selected Poems of Jaime Sabines (Twin Peaks Press, 1979). Levine has received numerous awards, including the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, the Frank O’Hara Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He served as the chair of the Literature Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts and as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2000–2006. After retiring from teaching, Levine divided his time between Brooklyn, New York, and Fresno, California, until his death in 2015. His final poetry collection, The Last Shift (Alfred A. Knopf), as well as a collection of essays and other writings, My Lost Poets: A Life in Poetry (Alfred A. Knopf), were published posthumously in 2016.  end