America's newest poet laureate is Detroit native Philip Levine, 83, who is known for capturing the poignancy and grit of a now-vanished industrial America, and the overall struggle of the working class.

　　Levine, tall and wiry, sits in the living room of the Brooklyn apartment he shares with Frances, his wife of nearly 60 years. He's published 16 collections of poetry and is knowledgeable about poetry concerning a vast array of subjects spanning centuries.

　　Yet he creates verse culled largely from what he calls the drudgery of the Detroit factory job he held in the 1940s and 1950s.

　　“I remember when I worked at General Motors, sometimes people would come in being led on a tour," Levine says. "They were looking at us like we are in a zoo. I felt demeaned by it. I also felt I am a smart guy. I am not living on my wits. And I've got to figure out a way to live on my wits because my back is getting tired. And I did finally get out of it. I got out of it by publishing poetry, curiously enough.”

　　Levine’s subject matter has acquired new relevance in today’s difficult economy. His poem, “What Work Is,” was the title work of a volume which won the National Book Award.

　　We stand in the rain in a long line

　　waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

　　You know what work is--if you're

　　old enough to read this you know what

　　work is, although you may not do it.

　　Forget you. This is about waiting...

　　Although Levine loves the variety in city life, he and Frances often return to Fresno, California, about 250 kilometers inland, where they keep a home. There, he says, life is “fixed,” and he writes a different sort of poetry. Here is an excerpt from “Our Valley.”

　　We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August

　　when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay

　　of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard

　　when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment

　　you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost

　　believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,

　　something massive, irrational, and so powerful even

　　the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it…

　　Levine cherishes silence and celebrates it in “He Would Never Use One Word Where None Would Do.”

　　Fact is, silence is the perfect water:

　　unlike rain it falls from no clouds

　　to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes,

　　to give heart to the thin blades of grass

　　fighting through the concrete for even air

　　dirtied by our endless stream of words.

　　The words Levine does use can be earthy. These lines are from “The Simple Truth,” the title poem of the collection that earned him the 1995 Pulitzer Prize.

　　Can you taste

　　what I'm saying? It is onions or potatoes, a pinch

　　of simple salt, the wealth of melting butter, it is obvious,

　　it stays in the back of your throat like a truth

　　you never uttered because the time was always wrong,

　　it stays there for the rest of your life, unspoken,

　　made of that dirt we call earth, the metal we call salt,

　　in a form we have no words for, and you live on it.

　　Levine also believes in the epic courage and tenderness of human beings. He is an admirer of the anarchists who fought alongside the Republicans against Gen. Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

　　“I was truly inspired by their belief in the boundless nature of the human that, given the opportunity, human beings could work out a way of living that was based on generosity and common ownership and sensitivity to each other and they could treat the world as a place they didn’t have dominion over but had to take care of."

　　As to what he hopes to achieve during his tenure as U.S. poet laureate, Levine says he'll do what he does when he writes a poem. He won't know where it's going; he'll just follow his instincts.