Learning: the two-way street

A colleague came to me asking if I could locate The Collected Poems of Primo Levi for a student's poetry research project. Of course I said yes, but I was thinking, "Oh, here is another case where a student has found a single Google link that might establish an author as a poet (my library has a volume of Hemingway poetry!). Just think of all the real poets they are missing."

So I locate the book at the BU library and have a family member fetch it for me. That night I open the slim volume and begin to learn.

The twenty-five poems in the slim volume constitute Levi's total poetic works; twenty-five poems spread over thirty-some years. Still skeptical about the merit of poems from such a concrete memoirist as Levi, I read them.

Humble pie is often very sweet indeed.

His rugged, tender poems were originally written to share with just his family; much like mine. That alone was a wonderful insight to sustain my personal incentive to continue writing for my family. Then I began to think about his need to say certain things with poetry, rather than essays or novels. And I was sustained again. I'm rethinking the idea of ever considering anybody a "minor" poet...or a "minor" anything.

Here is the last poem in the volume:

LEAVETAKING

It grows late, my friends:
So I won't accept bread or wine from you,
But just some hours of silence,
The tales of Peter the fisherman,
The musky perfume of this lake,
The ancient smell of burnt twigs,
The screeching gossip of gulls,
The free gold of lichens on roof-tiles,
And a bed, to sleep alone in.
I'll leave you in exchange nebbisch poems like these,
made to be read by five or six readers:
Then we''ll go off, each intent on his own cares,
Since, as I was saying, It grows late.

Primo Levi, 1974