Phillis Levin has published three books of poetry, received many awards and fellowships, edited and written a forty-page introduction to a major anthology of sonnets, and taught literature and creative writing at various institutions. She has received praise from voices as diverse as John Hollander, Jean Valentine, James Merrill, William Matthews, J. D. McClatchy, Richard Howard, and Tomaz Salamun. Translations of her poetry have been published in Peru, Argentina, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary, Russia, China, and Israel. Levin does not identify herself as a New Formalist, nor does she identify with any poetic movement. However, she has been claimed as a New Formalist, though a great many of her poems are in free verse; she has been anthologized in A Formal Feeling Comes: Poems in Form by Contemporary Women (1994) and Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism (1996). Across her three books, Levin's poetry emerges as deliberate and carefully planned...