The poem “You Can Have It” by Philip Levine first appeared in the author’s 1979 collection, 7 Years From Somewhere, and later in 1991’s New Selected Poems. Levine’s career spanned a little more than a half-century, and this poem was written in the first 10 years of his career as a poet. It was reprinted after he received significant accolades from critics and the poetry community. “You Can Have It” is narrative in style, containing distinct characters and dialogue. It is set, as many Levine poems are, in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan in the 1940s. The speaker is positioned three decades in the future and looks back on the events, creating a sense of poignant nostalgia. The action centers on twins, who are blue-collar workers, and employs some autobiographical elements (See: Further Reading & Resources). Stylistically, this poem is indicative of Levine’s free verse and employs a direct, matter-of-fact account of the past in an accessible voice.

This poem’s subject matter is also typical of Levine’s work, offering an exploration of how the drudgery of work can subsume the life of a laborer. Levine was particularly admired for his ability to capture the life of the factory worker in post-World War II urban United States. In discussing Levine’s work, Terrence Rafferty said “What gives Levine’s work its urgency is that impulse to commemorate, the need to restore to life people who were never, despite their deadening work, dead things themselves, and who deserve to be rescued” (See: Further Reading & Resources). This sums up the focus of “You Can Have It” as its speaker longs for a second chance to rework his sibling’s past.

Poet Biography

Philip Levine, along with his twin brother Edward, was born on January 10, 1928 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Polish Esther Pryszkulnik Levine, was a bookseller; his father, Jewish Harry Levine, owned a shop for used car parts. He had one older brother, Eli. As part of an immigrant family, Levine faced antisemitism but found comfort in in books during high school. At 14, Levin went to work in Detroit’s auto factories but graduated high school in 1946. He enrolled as an English major at Wayne State University and began writing poetry. After getting his bachelor’s degree in 1950, he went to work for Chevrolet and Cadillac, engaging in heavy labor.

He married Patty Kanterman in 1951, but their marriage was brief. They divorced in 1953, and he pursued his dream of leaving the auto industry. Levine saved up money to attend the University of Iowa but missed claiming a scholarship and couldn’t afford the tuition. He pretended to be a student, sitting in on classes taught by renowned poets Robert Lowell and John Berryman. He could not financially sustain this and returned to Detroit. In 1954, he married Frances J. Artley, an actress, who remained his wife until his death in 2015. The couple had three sons.

After receiving a Master of Arts in English from Wayne State University by mail order, Levine returned to the University of Iowa as a teacher of technical writing. He officially received a Master of Fine Arts in 1957 and was promptly awarded the Jones Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford. The family relocated to California. In 1958, he joined the California State University-Fresno faculty where he taught until retiring in 1992. Throughout his career, he served as a visiting professor at many institutions including New York University, University of California-Berkeley, Princeton, Brown, Vanderbilt, and Tufts.

Although Levine’s first books were published in the 1960s—On the Edge (1963) and Not this Pig (1968)—Levine achieved a high level of productivity in the 1970s. Seven volumes of poetry appeared in this decade—Pili’s Wall (1971), Red Dust (1971), They Feed They Lion (1972), 1933 (1974), The Names of the Lost (1976), and 7 Years From Somewhere (1979). Levine also received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1973), the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (1977), and the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize (1978). Levine’s poetry dealt extensively with the lives of urban workers, particularly from Detroit. He wrote about his Jewish immigrant heritage along with his own conception of the Jewish experience.

In 1980, Levine won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Ashes; Poems New and Old. He received the Levinson Prize (1981) and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1987). The collections One for the Rose (1981), Selected Poems (1984), Sweet Will (1985), and A Walk With Tom Jefferson (1988) all appeared within this decade. In 1991, his collection What Work Is won the National Book Award, and his New Selected Poems was released. In 1992, Levine retired from teaching and began to split his time between his home in California and Brooklyn, New York. Shortly thereafter, his book The Simple Truth (1994) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

His next poetry collections The Mercy (1999) and Breath (2004) met with acclaim, and in 2006, he was elected Chancellor to the Academy of American Poets. His collection News of the World came out in 2009. Although Levine’s focus consistently remained on poetry, he also worked as an editor and wrote nonfiction throughout his career. In 2011, he was named poet laureate of the United States, and in 2013, he received the Wallace Stevens Prize for mastery in the craft.

Levine died in Fresno on Valentine’s Day, 2015. His last collection of poetry, The Last Shift, was published in 2016.

Poem Text

Levine, Philip. “You Can Have It.” 1979. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

The poem begins with the speaker’s “brother” (Lines 1, 11, 41) coming home from his working-class job. It is nighttime. The siblings share the same room. The sibling is exhausted and when lying down for sleep, lets his footwear fall to the floor, saying “You can have it” (Line 4, Line 44). The “moonlight” (Line 5) comes into the room and hits his “unshaven face” (Line 6), which the speaker compares to the celestial body’s. The speaker notes the difference between his own day shift and the night shift his sibling completes. Three decades later, the speaker notes this “moment” (Line 10) in a discovery that the toil affected his sibling deeply. The disheartening job fills his sibling’s life with struggle and “a heart that always labors” (Line 14). The speaker then returns to memories to specify his sibling’s job at the “ice plant” (Line 17) and his own at a bottling company. Here the reader finds out the siblings’ youthful joy was crushed by constant hard work. The setting is revealed to be “1948 in the city of Detroit” (Line 25), a place noted for its factories. Reminiscing about the history of “the city’s” (Line 25) founding and its industrialization by “Henry Ford” (Line 27), the speaker then returns to the memory of the siblings’ bedroom, where they feel the weight of the passage of time. The speaker wishes the siblings could rewind time and receive all they missed. The poem ends with the speaker pleading for a return of “the moon” (Line 39) and “my young brother” (Line 41), poised in ferocity, ready to fight head-on.