Winter Stars

The poems are as alive on the page as if they were being spoken to us directly as we read.

* Publishers Weekly *

A sprawling psalmic line carries these poems forward as they show off that new interest in discursive meditation which has surfaced in the '80s. Levis's ability to cast his poems out from the self and then reel them in is impressive indeed.

* The North American Review *

There are few contemporary poets who can do what Larry Levis does. . . .There are few others who can combine so artfully the skills of the novelist and those of the poet. Levis's gift in this, perhaps his finest work, reveals itself in that attention to detail that is the novelist's creed, and the compulsion to say what must be said, even if one has stopped believing, that marks the poet's calling. . . .There are wonderfully fresh moments that blossom within poems. . . .In his best poems Levis touches something dreamlike, the horror and beauty that can exist within the commonplace. . . .Levis's poems have that sharp clarity, that pain, that haunting resonance.

* Kliat Paperback Book Guide *

All of Levis’s previous three collections have won awards, and Winter Stars continues to demonstrate his power. The best poems here contemplate childhood and adolescence, what is lost and what is carried away to be discovered in adulthood. The specter of the father is especially felt.

* Library Journal *

The poems of Larry Levis are linear; they progress down the page in a casual, almost chatty fashion, gathering ideas, images, scenes, events, and anecdotes as they occur to the speaker-a harried man, haunted by death and squandered love. . . . He handles his materials with an understated authority, a streetwise savoir faire.

* Poet