The Water Leveling with Us

Poetry. Environmental Studies. "Donald Levering takes us from ocean bottom to outer space, and from the jungles of Costa Rica to Arctic regions to the Andean heights of Chile, observing all the while the ways in which the earth's surface and its creatures labor to survive. These poems are never didactic, restrained and beautifully rendered as they are; rather, they evoke over and above the vulnerability man has imposed on nature, the vulnerability of man himself as he shares with them...
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Poetry. Environmental Studies. "Donald Levering takes us from ocean bottom to outer space, and from the jungles of Costa Rica to Arctic regions to the Andean heights of Chile, observing all the while the ways in which the earth's surface and its creatures labor to survive. These poems are never didactic, restrained and beautifully rendered as they are; rather, they evoke over and above the vulnerability man has imposed on nature, the vulnerability of man himself as he shares with them the shadow of extinction. Elegaic and observant, these poems illuminate the connections that inform our lives."—Leslie Ullman

"Forche, Milosz, Neruda: all our true poets of witness are poets of what we can't not see, poets of the heightened awareness that comes from danger. Levering offers THE WATER LEVELING WITH US in the same spirit and tradition as these poets. It is a book rich with images of the natural world and with sympathy for the people who inhabit it. It is a book modest in its ambition of making us pay attention, but that is the kind of modesty that can change the world."—Benjamin Myers

"Donald Levering's new collection, THE WATER LEVELING WITH US (Red Mountain Press), seeks continuity in our warming world. The timeless shifting of tides—'all the liquid drained from seashores here/fills fjords and coves in distant latitudes/the moon's means for formulating perfect/equanimity on earth'—continues in the face of 'avenging seas' and 'villages submerged under cubic / miles of sluggish reservoirs.' He takes a political stance against this backdrop, finding absurdity: 'On the other side of the planet / in that poppy growing land / the president wants us to bomb / a mouse is napping.' It's a place where climate change progresses to the sound of Handel's Water Music, and young boys line up in a school gym to 'donate blood to the giant / who is leaking oil.' Yet beauty persists, in the sound of the words he chooses, the unexpected rhymes, and the promise of silent understanding: 'A springtime revolution like shouting tulips/above the ticker scrolling soccer scores / in the lounge where we are reading lips.'"—Bill Kohlhaase, Santa Fe New Mexican review