Life in the Forest
Condini, N. E.
In brief LIFE IN THE FOREST, by Denise Levertov, New Directions, $3.95, 135 pp. In Tantra the pessimistic fear of desire and pleasure that characterized early Buddhism was seen as but another...
...He inspired Levertov's engagement in anti-war demonstrations...
...He is the unseen, active moral force attacking the denial of life in the American stance on Vietnam and in the Hiroshima bombing...
...Old gods took back their own...
...They are only emblems of the Garden they adumbrate...
...The garden though was a hostage...
...Fire, wind, colors, water, are like the subtle, elusive beauty of human grief...
...She was an alien here, as I am...
...Levertov's political commitment is subdued, as is her resentment, in Section III, at the failure of a love relationship, or poetry-as-being opposed to the narcissism of the self in S.IV...
...It does not matter that the garden it took Levertov's mother twenty years to grow is full of weeds in a few days...
...N.E...
...We have to move from reality to dream, not from dream to reality, in order to face death with courage: Gardens vanish...
...In Tantra the pessimistic fear of desire and pleasure that characterized early Buddhism was seen as but another form of bondage, and emphasis was placed on being-in-life without suppression of life forces but also without clinging or craving...
...Life in the Forest falls here and there into maudlin or over-refined niceties, but it powerfully asserts itself in 'Chekhov' and the poems dedicated to the death of the poet's mother in Mexico...
...Chekhov stands for "the most absolute freedom from violence and lying...
...CONDINI Commonweal: 190...
...The heart ofLife in the Forest is Levertov's mother's slow demise, the old woman's humble works and attention to detail, her moving through the leaves of delusion to the life that never dies, the "mani-jewel" of nirvana, that lies not apart from daily life but at its core...
...Denise Levertov's book echoes that assertion and by depicting aspects of life and death, of decay and renewal, channels all thoughts and acts, including sex and the imagination, into spiritual growth, This vision enacts the gesture of Buddha touching the earth at the moment of enlightenment...
...Her death was not Mexico's business...
Vol. 107 • March 1980 • No. 6
