A Tree Telling of Orpheus
(by Denise Levertov)......... A TREE TELLING OF ORPHEUS
was first published independently in 1968. It was
included in her 1970 collectionRelearning the
Alphabetand also her 2002Selected Poems.The
poem deals with an ancient Greek myth accord-
ing to which the Thracian magician Orpheus was
able to enchant trees and make them walk. It is
uniquely told as a first-person narrative by one of
the trees he enchanted. While the poem features
this particular motif, the whole range of Orphic
mythology is alluded to.
The publication of ‘‘A Tree Telling of
Orpheus’’ came at the height of the protest move-
ment against the Vietnam War and other counter-
vailing elements of the youth culture of the 1960s.
Levertov was a leading figure in these movements,
and some critics have taken the poem to relate to
the sense of awakening inherent in the 1960s coun-
terculture. However, many of the poem’s themes
look forward to Levertov’s later development as a
poet primarily interested in religion. This is true
not only of the poem’s surface material of myth-
ology but also in regard to its many mystical ideas
and its use of language derived from the spiritual
traditions of Christianity and Judaism to which
Levertov’s ancestry connected her.AUTHOR BIOGRAPHYDenise Levertov was born on October 24, 1923,
in Ilford, in the county of Essex in England. She
descended on her father’s side from Shneur294
DENISE LEVERTOV
1968