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The essay reads and re-evaluates Denise Levertov's poetry on the Vietnam War, including Relearning the Alphabet (1970), To Stay Alive (1971) and Footprints (1972). Levertov theorizes how the body, however inscribed by the writing of the culture, shares a certain universality of flesh, and it can be used to locate oneself and to find the meaning of another in oneself. With reference to Charles Olson and the Black Mountain poets, the essay, then, explores how Levertov attends to the lost fact of the body, forms that read, hear, and touch the social and historical fibre in the apparently isolated, eternal presence. Levertov is interested in the possibility of compassion, intimacy, and human suffering, as she envisions, for example, the body of the Vietnamese child connected to her psyche and her body. With an acute sense of worldliness and without accepting a clear division between the public and the private, Levertov's poetry and poetics patiently seek an embodied self and an open, flexible vision of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the poem "Footprints," by Seén Ó Ríordáin, translated by Greg Delanty. First Line: Now I'd like to meet him; Last Line: In the mud as I depart.

Presents the poem "Footprints," by Jena Woodhouse.

The poem "Footprints," by Josh Stewart is presented. First Line: On the wrong side of youth, Last Line: above your coffee cup?

Presents the poem "Footprints," by Pat O'Brien.

Presents the poem "Footprints." First Line: One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was; Last Line: was then that I carried you."