Mr. Memory & Other Poems

Praise

Praise for Mr. Memory & Other Poems
 
“Phillis Levin’s own signature is in some lines in a poem about a lost soul in the first grade, named Victor, where she says ‘I / Could be everywhere at once, inhabit / Any mind, occupy any pair of shoes.’ And she does just that in Mr. Memory, whether it is a lost scarf she is inhabiting, or ash in a fire, or the Odessa steps, or a grave in Lithuania, or a dot on the horizon, or a dead poet. The Other is not just close to her heart, it is her heart.”
 —Gerald Stern
 
“The poems in Mr. Memory are a fusion of keen intellect, passion, and wit. Phillis Levin has a sure grasp of the astonishing powers of the poetic line and the energy contained therein. Full of wonder and mystery, the poems in Mr. Memory transform the experience of ordinary life into something dream-like and visionary. Levin is a poet who knows  ‘…we stand undone by all / We recognize…,’ yet has the courage to embrace the shattering transformations that result.”     
—Elizabeth Spires
 
“I’ve always deeply admired the way Phillis Levin combines suggestiveness of statement with subtlety of feeling. Her sequence of poems in the consciousness of Zeno, the Greek philosopher, are as mordant and full of longing as Zbigniew Herbert’s Mr. Cogito. She never fans the air with some single faculty, but in every encounter in every poem the full force of all her faculties achieves a sacramental completeness of understanding.”  
—Tom Sleigh