SOURCE: "A Necessary Poetry," in Poetry, Vol. XCVII, No. 2, November, 1960, pp. 102-09.

Levertov is a leading post-World War II American poet. Her early verse is often described as neo-Romantic, while her later writing reflects the influence of the objectivist poetry of William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound as well as the projectivist work of "Black Mountain" poets Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and Robert Duncan. In the following review of "A" 1-12, Levertov expresses high esteem for the volume and defines the strength of Zukofsky's poetry.

A sense of stress, even of strain—of words spoken out of a necessity that is often painful—words spoken in a low voice that often pauses and then as if recharged resumes in urgency, but still with fastidious deliberation: this, to my ear, is the dominating impression of Louis Zukofsky's poetry.

This quality—the sense of travail—is one reason why he...