"A Psalm Praising the Hair of Man's Body" and "Where is the Angel," Poems by Denise Levertov

In A Psalm Praising the Hair of Man's Body, there's a refrain, "My great brother/Lord of the Song...," which reminds me of Anne Sexton's refrain, "someone who should have been born is gone" in one of her poems. But of course Denise Levertov's refrain is quite comical. Her brother is the hairiest of all, the "King of Hair." I also find it humorous the way the speaker refers to her husband's hair as "a black adornment," she embraces his hair. In the line, "burns my palm-stroke," the husband is so hairy that it burns her palm every time she touches his chest, but I get the feeling that she enjoys this burning sensation. Moreover, I suspect the son is an athlete because the speaker refers to her son as having "Strong legs." She talks about being able to tell her son's life by the many hairs of his legs, "Told of long roads," so I think she's talking about the eldest son who should probably be, at least thirty years old.

Furthermore, in the last stanza, the speaker talks about not only the hair of men, but also the hair of women, "Hair of man, man-hair, hair of/breast and..." This sounds as if she's saying that hair is no big deal, we all have hair in different parts of our body-hair is hair. Also, in the lines,"...marking contour as/silverpoint marks..." she's saying that hair is marking its territory in the human body (men and women).

In Where is the Angel, the speaker of the poem is stationary in her car in the middle of the snow, "No driving snow.../but mild September." The imagery in the line, "No driving snow in the glass bubble," reminds me of those plastic containers filled with fake snow, that one shakes, so it looks like the snow is falling down. This is how she feels right now, enclosed, not going anywhere, stuck inside her car. She compares herself to one of these plastic decorations.

Levertov doesn't restrict herself to one specific slant rhyme scheme, she uses a different one in each stanza or none at all. For example, in the lines, "...angel for me to wrestle/in the glass bubble/but mild September," the slant rhyme scheme is ABA, and in the lines, "...I hear, only that/...walls of curved glass, the slant rhyme scheme is AA. I noticed that she also plays with words such as in the line, "It is pleasant in here," from the fifth stanza and the line, "In here/it is pleasant," from the sixth stanza. The latter has a stronger effect because the sentence has been broken down in two parts, which somehow gives each part its own strength when they stand alone. How interesting that each line has a different effect even though they say the same thing. The two may contained the same concept, but are not read the same way.