Sky Burial
Sky Burial by Dana Levin, published by Copper Canyon Press in 2011, is a collection of poetry that delves into themes of death, grief, and loss. With 75 pages of evocative verse, this edition presents a profound exploration of mortality, drawing on diverse cultural practices such as Tibetan Buddhist burial and Aztec human sacrifice. Levin’s work invites readers to confront their darkest sorrows through intimate and reflective language.
In this collection, Levin articulates the complexities of being an embodied consciousness navigating the world, shaped by dreams and existential inquiries. The poems reflect on the inescapable nature of fate, offering a nuanced perspective on human experiences surrounding death. Readers will find a rich tapestry of imagery and emotion that resonates with the universal themes of grief and the human condition.
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“Readers will find that this work carries the pulse of their darkest sorrows, in the breath of their humanity. Highly recommended.”–Library Journal
“Intimate and hypnotic.”–Ploughshares
“Levin has the skilled ear, magnificent tongue, and fierce mind of the truly prophetic.”–Rain Taxi
“Levin’s work is phenomenological; it details how it feels to be an embodied consciousness making its way through the world.”–Boston Review
“Death is the new and unshakeable lens through which I see,” writes Dana Levin about her third book, in which she confronts mortality and loss in subjects ranging from Tibetan Buddhist burial practices to Aztec human sacrifice. Shaped by dreams and “the worms and the gods,” these poems are a profound investigation of our inescapable fate. As Louise Glück has said: “Levin’s animating fury goes back deeper into our linguistic and philosophic history: to Blake’s tiger, to the iron judgments of the Old Testament.”
They took you in an ambulance even though you were dead,
they took you
and my sister said
Why are you saving her if she is dead?
shey shey–
Curve of sky a crescent blade.
Vultures wheeling
on thermal parapets, shunyata,
void that flays–
Yak butter,
barley flour and tea: you watch him
make the paste.
Dana Levin‘s debut volume In the Surgical Theatre won the prestigious APR/Honickman First Book Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University of New Mexico and in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
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