A Woman Alone (1978). Detailed description

Published in 1978 as part of Life in the Forest, “A Woman Alone” belongs to a transitional period in Levertov’s career. She had already passed her most outwardly political stage but had not yet become explicit about her religious beliefs. Instead, she focuses on her very personal life. Other notable poems from the collection include “The 90th Year” and “A Soul-Cake,” both about her mother’s death; “Chekhov on the West Heath,” about her childhood; and “Wedding-Ring,” about the remnants of her marriage. Although indirectly, “A Woman Alone” also deals with her divorce from Mitchell Goodman, which took place in 1974.

The poem begins with three incomplete sentences that each end in an ellipsis. Those initial sentences describe different freedoms and luxuries ranging from the joys of being sexually liberated to the pleasure of disconnecting the phone, “to sleep till noon . . .” On first read the unfinished sentences may create an uneasy anticipation. Because they leave us without an immediate answer, we begin to imagine several possibilities. Although it seems fairly clear that these freedoms are pleasant and appreciated, the first line sets a tone of uncertainty. “When she cannot be sure” not only betrays doubt in the subject’s mind but also leaves the reader wondering who the subject “she” is (Selected Poems 110).

Along with the understanding that “she” is the woman alone, much of the discomfort dissipates as the tone shifts. Moving from a proselike description of personal liberties, the poem assumes a tighter voice with precise images and closely cropped lines. The poem returns to its initial tone at later points, but for a moment at least, it efficiently dramatizes the tension between struggling with and enjoying solitude. Notably, the initial ambiguity found in the poem’s first line does not completely resolve itself with the shift in tone. We learn that “She has fears, but not about loneliness; / fears about how to deal with the aging / of her body.” She believes “in her future as an old woman,” but photographs and mirrors constantly remind her of her age (110).

The problem of “how to deal / with photographs and the mirror” raises questions about stereotypes based on gender (110). In an earlier poem called “Abel’s Bride,” Levertov uses the mirror as a symbol for women’s self-consciousness. As a result of societal demands and popular images of femininity, the physical appearance of women attracts scrutiny. Consider the common image of a half-mad “spinster” living alone with more cats than wits, or the image of an aging widow, lost in the world without her husband. Having overcome loneliness, a woman alone also has to overcome stereotypes and judgments that might depreciate her single life. That “She feels / so much younger and more beautiful / than she looks” speaks to the difficulty of trusting one’s own sense of self rather than the superficial attitudes of a visual society obsessed with youth (110).

“A Woman Alone” does not minimize that difficulty, but it does reach past it. By believing in her future she hopes to become “tough and wise” while also remaining content with her current position. The poem ends “without shame or deceit” by praising the solitude she has learned to enjoy (111).

For Discussion or Writing
1. Although she received the support and acclaim of many feminist critics, Levertov refused to count herself among many of her contemporaries as a “women’s liberation” writer. Explain your understanding of feminism and describe how a “A Woman Alone” does or does not fit within that framework. Would you consider Levertov a feminist poet, despite her objections?

2. Read Levertov’s poem “Living Alone,” parts 1, 2, and 3, all of which were published in The Freeing of the Dust only three years before Life in the Forest. How do Levertov’s attitudes toward living alone seem to change? Use specific examples from both poems to support your answer.

3. Levertov often discussed “confessional poetry” with a certain disdain. In an interview with Sybil Estess conducted the year Life in the Forest was published, Levertov argued, “The confessional poem has as its motivational force the desire to unburden the poet of something which he or she finds oppressive. But the danger here is reducing a work of art simply into a process of excretion. A poem is not vomit” (“Denise Levertov” 97). Compare “A Woman Alone” to Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” perhaps America’s most famous confessional poem. Although their topics differ, do you find similarities in the technique, voice, attitude, or intent? Citing specific examples, discuss the ways in which Levertov may be more or less confessional than Plath.