{"id":6047,"date":"2020-06-17T17:43:05","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T22:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/press\/?page_id=6047"},"modified":"2024-10-15T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T04:37:08","slug":"louise-landes-levi","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/coolgrove.com\/books\/louise-landes-levi\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Landes Levi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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LLL was the recipient of the ACKER (Kathy Acker<\/em>) AWARD NYC for POETRY.  2020.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formal presentation was held at the Theater of the New City, NYC, 2021. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Philip Whalen Memorial Award
   (Poets In Need) 2004 & 2012<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Italian Premio Poesia, Saliola Award, 2006<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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About Louise Landes Levi (LLL)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louise Landes Levi is a poet, translator, musician, and performer whose travels have charted an elaborate constellation of mystic and cosmic pathways. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Louise Landes Levi is a poet, translator, musician, and performer whose travels have charted an elaborate constellation of mystic and cosmic pathways. A founding member of Daniel (Abdul Hayye) Moore’s Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, she participated\u2014from 1967 to 1969, alongside Terry Riley and Angus Maclise\u2014in multidisciplinary drama inspired by Artaud\u2019s research with the Tarahumara, the Balinese Gamelan, Tibetan monastic ritual, and Indian dance. Following studies at Mills College with sarangi master Pandit Ram Narayan, Levi traveled alone from Paris through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan to reach northern India for research into its musical and poetic tradition. There, she studied with Sri Annapurna Devi and Ustad Abdul Majid Khan, later becoming Ali Ak Bar Khan\u2019s pupil at the Basel Conservatory of Music and in California. Completing her journey in her birthplace of New York, Levi studied with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela, monitoring their Dream House into the 21st century. Levi has translated the work of Henri Michaux and Indian mystic Mira Bai (whose Sweet On My Lips La Monte Young wrote the introduction for) and is responsible for the first English translation of Rene Daumal\u2019s Rasa, or, Knowledge of the Self: Essays on Indian Aesthetics (New Directions, 1982). She has published over a dozen books of her own poetry, most recently Crazy Louise (or la Conversazione Sacra), a series of poems examining sexual trauma from the perspective of an initiate, delineating an oriental interpretation of lunacy to reclaim the notion of the feminine hysterical from its subordinate and abusive occidental role. Levi\u2019s introverted lifestyle and reverence for musical tradition and attainment have left comparatively little space for musical dissemination, but the last decade has seen the reappearance of works from the \u201880s in addition to several contemporary releases featuring contributions from her friends, the late Ira Cohen and Catherine Christer Hennix. Whether alone or with accompaniment, Levi\u2019s elegiac sarangi, bells, and flute exude the feeling of otherworldly, indeed forgotten ritual. Her invocation & interpretive sense of raga, in these recordings, overlaid with spoken and sung poetry, invoke threshold experience, railing against mono culture with a sincerity & presence as sardonic or mournful as it is devotional. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014ADRIAN REV, for Blank Forms<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\u2019s works have been translated into
Dutch, German, Italian, Serbo-Croatian.
Japanese, Polish (unpublished)
&
Spanish (forthcoming) GURU PUNK <\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Enlightened Aesthetics: LOUISE LANDES LEVI with Raymond Foye<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Brooklyn Rail, May 2020<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Sweet on my Lips: the love poems of Mirabai<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe relationship between Louise and Mirabai seems divinely ordained. It is hard to imagine a more perfect vehicle for the English language realization of this ecstatic work. At first, I was unable to finish reading even one poem because, each time I began, I received such an overwhelming transmission of spiritual love that my eyes blurred with tears and I could go no further. It was more than enough. Louise\u2019s translations had retained the power of beauty that can far transcend the words that express it. They reminded us that even the words of our greatest poets are sometimes but fleeting reflections of the brilliance that informs them.”  \u2014<\/strong> La Monte Young<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Sweet on My Lips: the Love Poems of Mirabai, by Louise Landes-Levi, is as much a process as it is a book, asking us to peel back layers until we arrive at the center. In this case, the center is 25 of Mirabai\u2019s love poems translated from the Braja bhasa dialect, the literary language of Medieval North India. Represented in this intricate assemblage is the 30-year commitment Landes-Levi has given to Mirabai\u2019s work. It is an evolution that took her to India as a young woman, led her intuitively in the steps of Mirabai to a study of Sanskrit and a fuller understanding of the bhakti tradition in which Mirabai writes.
So, this book, like a single Mira bhajan, has a power and form all its own. But it also has a delicacy in the reader\u2019s hands. \u201cSome lose him\/ sleeping,\/ I lost him\/ awake.\u201d It needs to be approached carefully so that none of its aspects are lost in our haste or possible misunderstanding. Radiating from the center of the book, where the poems act as its heart, is a series of prefaces, introductions, and appendixes not following a linear progression.
The first set, like two parentheses around the body of poems, are two essays, both from 1977: one immediately precedes the poems, the other immediately follows. They are the most ambitious in literary and historical breadth. The second round of commentary is dated 1987, a set of essays surrounding the first like additional parentheses. In these essays, \u201ca return to a bygone period,\u201d there is a distancing from the initial work, but Landes-Levi is still \u201choping to obtain in myself the fruit which her [Mirabai\u2019s] poetry conceals.\u201d She often refers to her Tibetan teacher, Namkhai Norbu, from whom she receives many insights, and she asks her readers to \u201cexcuse any errors of transcription or translation and profit, as I have, from the passionate love of Mira.\u201d
\u201cPreface,\u201d 1995, opens the book, and \u201cAppendix II,\u201d 1992-4, followed by an undated \u201cAppendix III, The Music of Mirabai,\u201d and a glossary of terms, ends the book. By arranging the essays in this manner, Landes-Levi avoids the circumference, leading us straight through the center: \u201cIn the instance of texts which deal with transmission and lineage, the act of translation is a direct path into these essences and the energies they convey. \u201d As the reader, you must dissect. In some cases your questions won\u2019t be answered. Each ring represents a decade of thought. As Landes-Levi says in the last paragraph of her final commentary, \u201cIf I now offer the Mira work, it is a simple gesture, a mudra of experience.\u201d
Landes-Levi wants us to know \u201cthe precise music of the Braja poem.\u201d She has shown us their shape (three poems are included in their untransliterated form), their sound, through a transliterated poem and a discussion of the rasa, or mode for the poems, which is \u201csringara,\u201d that of erotic expression and spiritual intoxication. She has spoken extensively about the bhakti tradition, which takes Krishna as its supreme deity, and the love play in which Mirabai assumes the role of Krishna\u2019s lover. \u201cO Girdhara, I serve\/ your\/ Lotus-feet.\u201d Isn\u2019t this more than most translators would do for their readers?
She also expects more from us. The extensive notes that accompany the translated poems prove this. Landes-Levi prefers to leave certain place names, objects and epithets in their original. The choice magnifies that aspect of Mirabai\u2019s poems which makes them seem both close and strange at once. Readers can either refer to the footnotes or simply bathe in the sound of the original. Either way, you manage to hear the voice of Mirabai as she sung in the Northern India of the 16th Century; you hear the voices of her teachers before her, and all of the later poets in the School of Krishna Bhakti continuing to the present day. \u201cYogi, I\u2019m your slave\/ don\u2019t leave, \/ show me\/ Love\u2019s path.\u201d
After giving us the poems, a description of the old house in Bombay by the sea where the translations began to take shape is particularly compelling. The last commentary goes back to the conditions that led Landes-Levi to India in 1968, then back to her childhood, where a certain predilection for India had already begun to show. In a gesture of pure generosity, Landes-Levi holds back nothing now. Earlier cryptic statements open in full disclosure. \u201cKind-one, hear my complaint,\/ I\u2019m floating on a cosmic sea,\/ I\u2019ve gone the whole way.\u201d
Reader, allow yourself to be led through this poet\u2019s life, with photographs and maps of India to aid you until you arrive at the other\u2019s life, the ancient poet, whose body is said to have disappeared at death, leaving only a sari behind. \u201cO Love, you live in a foreign land,\/but my love for you\/ is unchanging.\u201d Because Landes-Levi adopted the tradition of Mirabai, through her we see Mirabai embodied. Landes-Levi ends up in all the places close to Mirabai, from the palace at Udaipur, where she began her life as a bride and Queen`, to the forests of Brindaban, land of Krishna, to the jungle village of Kanchipuran, where Mirabai\u2019s lineage began. Landes-Levi\u2019s life has become inextricably and uniquely bound to that of Mirabai. \u201cMira says,\/ I\u2019m yours,\/ Don\u2019t forget.\u201d
The power of the book is in its multiple levels of expression: personal, literary, mystical, interwoven in a manner difficult to describe. Go back to the poems after you have finished the book. Are you not a better reader of Mirabai\u2019s poetry now? \u201cWith tears I planted the vine of love,\u201d sings Mira. \u201cNow that vine is full with its fruit, Bliss.\u201d
Sweet on My Lips is such a vine.” \u2014 Review by INDIA REFAR originally in Bigbridge.org. <\/strong>Issue 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Guru Punk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Louise Landes Levi\u2019s poems are the union of street smarts and great wisdom. Her poems sing in the mind, and dance through the heart and throat, and arms and legs, with great Clarity and bliss. Louise is Saraswati, goddess of poetry.\u201d \u2014 John Giorno<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201clouise landes levi\u2019s guru punk is sex in the city light years delivered from tv usa\u2019s yuppie mortification. the fast breath of punk and the end- less flow of buddha. like passing beauty in the sub- way. it\u2019s there, it\u2019s gone, it\u2019s there again.\u201d  \u2014Thurston Moore <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGuru Punk, original oxymoron cuts to the essence of Louise Landes Levi\u2019s work. Guru, as devotion combined with Punk– total defiance of conventional mind, together defines the centuries old tradition of practitioners writing their path to realization to find bliss midst the bricolage of samsara\u2019s discarded moments.\u201d \u2014Jacqueline Gens, The Mirror <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Book L<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At last, a full-scale collection of LLL\u2019s under-the-radar poetry. An essential gathering of her work. Visionary, musician, translator, L\u2019s work is sui generis, true to her keen & keening mind & deep soul flashes. No recent American poet has so consistently been in the light & shadows, so restless yet so centered. Resistant & resilient in her certainties & questions. Diamond flashes of light in the world & beyond it. I\u2019ve been reading her small books & fascicles & translations for \u2013 at last some sense of her work\u2019s range is now available.\u2014David Meltzer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Where I Stand in Angel<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Where I Stand In Angel ~ by Louise Landes Levi is a terrific, lyrical and fierce dispatch from the far margins of society, at turns deeply romantic and
compassionate, especially in the face of brutalities, clear-eyed of the often sanctimonious spiritual while never ever abandoning the star she
navigates her course by. She is the real deal, not often will you encounter such a person so generous in appraisal of this existence. A
true poet of the bardo.” \u2014Aaron Sinift<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Interview with Louise Landes Levi for Brooklyn Rail 05\/2020<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Some audio recordings by Louise Landes Levi and Friends<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a practice dating back to the 1960s, over the last decade the poet, musician, and performer, Louise Landes Levi has slowly come into focus as one of the most fascinating and engaging figures in the contemporary landscape….., she stands among the great links between high psychedelia, the countercultural explorations of Artaud<\/strong> and Michaux<\/strong>, Eastern mysticism, Hindustani music, and the sonic avant-garde.\u201d  \u2014 SOUNDOLM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

City of Delirium<\/strong> (on Youtube)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/S<\/span><\/a>acred Remains In The Transformation Station<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/featheredcoyoterecords.bandcamp.com\/album\/sacred-ruins-in-the-transformation-station<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/ Opacity and Delirium<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.soundohm.com\/product\/opacity-and-oblivion<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/Colloidal Love 10\u201d LP<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.soundohm.com\/product\/colloidal-love-10<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/Kinnari<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stream Side one<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stream Side two<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/Padma<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stream Side One<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stream Side Two<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LLL\/Ikiru the Wanderer<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/oakenpalace.bandcamp.com\/album\/ikiru-or-the-wanderer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KAMI<\/strong>: LLL\/Timo van Luijk\/Bart De Paepe<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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https:\/\/www.soundohm.com\/product\/kami-lp<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Music Audio: L. Landes Levi with Takehisa Kosugi <\/a>under isolation spring of 2020, Kyoto<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Coolgrove Press titles from Louise Landes Levi <\/p>\n\n\n