All the Dead Are Holy

In this collection, not only are all the dead holy, but all the living as well, including “the one-legged veteran, the toddler with doll and comb.” There are echoes of those who perished in the Holocaust and those still laboring to make a life in the modern American landscape. In Levy’s tightly crafted poems, we glimpse what is both familiar and human: teachers, immigrant brides, a lost father’s shirts and ties, the sidekick brother, the dying mother. The message is clear and powerful: “You must remember.”             — John Jeffire, author of Motown Burning and Shoveling Snow in a Snowstorm Larry Levy is the best kind of writer. His poems—with their honesty and intimacy—invite you in, ask you to sit at the table, and listen to the stories you need to hear about the past that is never past, the wars that will not end, and the people who continue to love even though they are gone. Hearing his stories, you begin to wake to your own stories, your own losses and loves, and finally you want to take his hand and thank him for what he has given you.             — John Guzlowski, author of Echoes of Tattered Tongues Larry Levy has been digging deep, adding concreteness and insight to themes he chose as his own in I Would Stay Forever If I Could. In this gathering of new work, he explores his Jewish and Midwestern heritage, the strains and joys of teaching and of being a student, the resilience and vulnerability of childhood, and the ever-presence of evil in the world, from the Holocaust to our own time. Unsurprising is increased attention to the experience of aging. These poems exemplify compassion and emotional accuracy through an observing eye and craftsmanship.             — John Palen, author of Small Economies and Distant Music