Denise Levertov, one of the most important American poets, was born in Ilford, Essex, England, in 1923. Her father, Paul Levertoff, was a descendant of Schneour Zalman, who founded a branch of Hasidic Judaism. He later converted to Christianity and became a priest. Her mother was also part of a Welsh literary family.

The poet was home educated and later served as a nurse in London during World War II. She emigrated to America in 1948 after she married Mitchell Goodman, and became a naturalised American citizen. They had one son Nikolai, an artist and writer.

Levertov lived in Somerville, Massachusetts, for a number of years while teaching at Brandeis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts Universities. She moved to Seattle in 1989, taught part-time at the University of Washington and at Stanford University.

She was said to have ‘brought her own distinctive spirit and goals’ in her teaching. After her retirement she did poetry readings the United States and Europe and maintained correspondence with other poets and friends. She died of lymphoma on December 20, 1997.

Levertov strongly believed that inherited tendencies and the cultural atmosphere of her own family were strong factors in her own development as a person and as a poet.

She was interested in humanitarian politics from an early age, and was an activist for peace and justice. She believed that politics and poetry were profoundly connected.