SOURCE: "Some Notes on Organic Form," in New Directions in Prose and Poetry, Vol. 20, edited by J. Laughlin, New Directions, 1968, pp. 123-28.

In the following essay, originally published in Poetry (Chicago), Levertov discusses the creation of "organic" poetry.

For me, back of the idea of organic form is the concept that there is a form in all things (and in our experience) which the poet can discover and reveal. There are no doubt temperamental differences between poets who use prescribed forms and those who look for new ones—people who need a tight schedule to get anything done, and people who have to have a free hand—but the difference in their conception of "content," or "reality," is functionally more important. On the one hand is the idea that content, reality, experience, is essentially fluid and must be given form; on the other, this sense of seeking out...