The Simple Truth: Poems

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1995
 
Written in a voice that moves between elegy and prayer, The Simple Truth contains thirty-three poems whose aim is to weave a complex tapestry of myth, history (both public and private), family, memory, and invention in a search for truths so basic and universal they often escape us all.

Philip Levine's 15th collection of poetry muses on the past--everything from friends lost, decisions made and potatoes eaten is remembered and considered. With humor and strikingly modest wisdom, Levine mingles realism and romanticism, producing fascinating, emotionally persuasive shifts and tonal modulations that epitomize a lived truth. As he laments his losses, he is also stoic, bending to acknowledge the misfortunes of others in total sympathy. The Simple Truth was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1995.