Philip Levine (1928-2015) was born in Detroit, where he studied at Wayne University. After working as a labourer, he settled in Fresno, California, and also lived in other countries for some time, including Spain. He taught at Fresno until his retirement, later dividing his time between Fresno and Brooklyn, New York. Levine received many awards for his poetry, including the National Book Award (1980 & 1991), and the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for The Simple Truth. He published 17 collections of poems and two books of essays, and was appointed US Poet Laureate in 2011 at the age of 83. Stranger to Nothing: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2006) covers his American collections from On the Edge (1963) to Breath (2004). It was his first UK publication since Secker published an earlier Selected Poems in 1984. He also published a later collection, News of the World (Knopf, 2009).
'Levine's poetic vision, nearly religious, transcends class, transcends natural boundaries, and transcends time... Masterly' - Peter Davison, Atlantic Monthly 'What I particularly admire about Mr Levine's work is its great emotional riskiness, its large, deeply felt commitments ...In a reactionary and forgetful time these radiantly human and memorialising poems can help us understand our lives' - Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review 'Levine is a revelation and a rarity...As with Whitman, this is democratic art that does not slum' - Philadelphia Inquirer
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