Larry Patrick Levis was an American poet.

Youth and Education

Larry Levis was born the son of a grape

Grape

A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...

 grower; he grew up driving a tractor

Tractor

A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...

, picking grapes, and pruning vine

Vine

A vine in the narrowest sense is the grapevine , but more generally it can refer to any plant with a growth habit of trailing or scandent, that is to say climbing, stems or runners...

s of Selma, California

Selma, California

Selma is a city in Fresno County, California. The population was 23,219 at the 2010 census, up from 19,240 at the 2000 census. Selma is located southeast of Fresno, at an elevation of 308 feet .-Geography:...

, a small fruit-growing town in the San Joaquin Valley

San Joaquin Valley

The San Joaquin Valley is the area of the Central Valley of California that lies south of the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta in Stockton...

. He later wrote of the farm, the vineyards, and the Mexican migrant workers that he worked alongside. He also remembered hanging out in the local billiards parlor on Selma's East Front Street, across from the Southern Pacific Railroad

Southern Pacific Railroad

The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....

 tracks.

Levis earned a bachelor's degree

Bachelor's degree

A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 from Fresno State College

California State University, Fresno

California State University, Fresno, often referred to as Fresno State University and synonymously known in athletics as Fresno State , is one of the leading campuses of the California State University system, located at the northeast edge of Fresno, California, USA.The campus sits at the foot of...

 in 1968, a master's degree from Syracuse University

Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 in 1970, and a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 from the University of Iowa

University of Iowa

The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...

 in 1974.

Awards and recognition

Levis won the United States Award from the International Poetry Forum for his first book of poems, Wrecking Crew (1972), which included publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press

University of Pittsburgh Press

The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States....

. The American Academy of Poets named his second book, The Afterlife (1976) as Lamont Poetry Selection. His book The Dollmaker's Ghost was a winner of the Open Competition of the National Poetry Series. Other awards included a YM-YWHA Discovery award, three fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

. His poems are featured in American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets (2006) and in many other anthologies. Larry Levis died of a heart attack in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 on May 8, 1996, at the age of 49.

Academic career

Levis taught English at the University of Missouri

University of Missouri

The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...

 from 1974-1980. From 1980 to 1992, he taught at the creative writing

Creative writing

Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...

 program at the University of Utah

University of Utah

The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

. He was co-editor of Missouri Review, from 1977 to 1980.
From 1992 until his death from a heart attack in 1996 he was a professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University

Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...

, which annually awards the Levis Reading Prize in his remembrance (articles about Levis and the prize are featured each year in Blackbird, an online journal of literature and the arts).

Selected bibliography

Poetry

• Wrecking Crew (1972)
• The Afterlife (1977)
• The Dollmaker's Ghost (1981)
• Winter Stars (1985)
• The Widening Spell of the Leaves (1991)
• Elegy (1997)
• The Selected Levis (2000)

Prose

• The Gazer Within (2000)

Fiction

• Black Freckles (1992)

External links

• http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v4n2/features/levis_remembered/index.htm
• http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v3n2/features/levis_remembered/levis_toc.htm
• http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v2n2/features/levis_l/levis_toc.htm
• http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v1n2/features/levis_l/levis_toc.htm
• http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/aa121200a.htm
• http://www.missourireview.com/info/levis.php.