Smoke

Philip Levine

1998

Can you imagine the air filled with smoke?
It was. The city was vanishing before noon
or was it earlier than that? I can’t say because
the light came from nowhere and went nowhere.
This was years ago, before you were born, before
your parents met in a bus station downtown.
She’d come on Friday after work all the way
from Toledo, and he’d dressed…
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Creator Bio

Philip Levine

1928–2015

Born and brought up in Detroit, poet Philip Levine drew on his personal experience of working-class life. He taught English and creative writing at California State University, Fresno, and was Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at New York University. Levine was the recipient of the National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

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