The Minor Virtues

by Lynn Levin

The Minor Virtues, Lynn Levin’s fifth collection of poems, begins with celebrations of small everyday practices—among them, fixing broken things and buying produce from the marked-down cart—which, when fancifully contemplated, branch into deeper appreciations of life. Levin's outlook is eclectic and occasionally very funny. Her moments are not without griefs and worries, yet, in these lyrics and narratives, she addresses them with good humor, respect, and abiding affection. As Willard Spiegelman observers, Lynn Levin’s "many virtues, variously presented and contained here, are more than minor. Maturity, wisdom, and wit are among them."

"In poem after poem, Lynn Levin creates work, by turns, humorous and serious, and she is not afraid to enter poetic traditions that some might find bold."
-- -Kim Bridgford, author of A Crown for Ted and Sylvia

"Reading these poems, I, too, began to celebrate minor gifts: that oranges and apples rescued from the marked-down cart can be turned into a bounty of salads and pies, that pea tendrils in spring finally “get the hang of it,” weaving a green cloth on the back fence so lovely that the poet wants to wear it. Lynn Levin writes about driftwood “coughed up by the cold Atlantic,” about the small skid of love in the voice of a neighbor calling his lost dog, and about the pleasure of thinking about nothing. Out of such minimal blessings Levin shows us what a marvelous book can be made."
--Jeanne Murray Walker, author of Pilgrim, You Find the Path by Walking

About the author

Lynn Levin is the author of four previous collections of poems: Miss Plastique, Fair Creatures of an Hour, Imaginarium, and A Few Questions about Paradise (Loonfeather Press). She is the translator, from the Spanish, of Birds on the Kiswar Tree by Odi Gonzales (2Leaf Press/University of Chicago Press). With Valerie Fox, she is the author of Poems for the Writing: Prompts for Poets, first and second editions (Texture Press). Lynn Levin’s poems, essays, translations, and short fiction have appeared in Rattle, Boulevard, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mandorla, Metamorphoses, JewishFiction.net, Cleaver, and many other journals and anthologies. She teaches at Drexel University, and, for many years, she taught creative writing at the University of Pennsylvania. Lynn Levin was born in St. Louis, Missouri and lives in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her website is lynnlevinpoet.com.