Donald Levering was born in Kansas City and grew up there and in Oceanside, New York. In addition to being awarded a NEA Fellowship, he won the Quest for Peace Prize in rhetoric, the Tor House Foundation Prize and was Runner-Up for the Ruth Stone Prize. His 16th poetry book, Breaking Down Familiar, was first place winner in the 2023 New Mexico Press Women Creative Verse Book Contest. He lives in Santa Fe where he volunteers with Kitchen Angels and as a U.S. citizenship tutor. Learn more.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
It happened in the vicinity of Izmir, Turkey. Our personal tour guide was the wife of a man who was like a brother to me. She had taken my family to the House of the Virgin Mary, a shrine on the site of the dwelling where Jesus’ mother reportedly stayed after the crucifixion. It was midday in summer when the light began to diminish with what became a total solar eclipse. The birds ceased singing and flitting about; insects stopped their noises. The air grew cooler. Our guide and I seemed to be to ourselves, watching the eclipse play out in a thousand gaps between the tree leaf shadows on the ground. Suddenly I felt in love with the unity of the cosmos –– and with this beautiful Turkish woman. Nothing untoward ever transpired betwixt us, but within two years, I was divorced from a thirty-year marriage that prior to the eclipse I had no premonition was about to collapse.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
I am thoroughly identified with my work as a poet. Before I retired, I worked a full-time job, but that job was merely what I did for pay and benefits. All of the years before I retired, I wrote poetry early in the morning and read poetry whenever I could. So it’s not a question of “quality of life,” other than to venture that without my work in poetry I would feel unfulfilled.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
My mother hardly ever spoke about or showed the goings-on inside her. She and I went to an exposition of specially preserved human body parts called BODY WORLDS. We held hands to walk up to the display suspended in the dark labeled Human Nervous System. Extracted from a cadaver, unencumbered by muscle and bone, it was like a large, electric jellyfish. Mother said it made her woozy. She turned to look at the others –– a schoolgirl riveted to the exhibit, a woman stroking her young son’s hair, both mouths agape. We overheard a tour guide … each sensation we feel flashes through these neural filaments … Feeling faint again, my mother found a bench, looked at the others. I sat beside her. She shuddered and said she was picturing each passing person’s nervous system tangle on display.
Author photo: Courtesy of author
Side bar image: Pixabay/Edar
