Feeling OK About Our Unhealthy Wreck of a Nation
U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine Talks About Social Isolation, Democracy, and Beer Drinking On Lake Erie
U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine thinks that democracy in America today is “unhealthy” and “a wreck.” Yet in a wide-ranging, often raucous conversation with Sacramento Bee editorial page editor Stuart Leavenworth, he also proclaimed himself “sanguine” about America, and in particular about the level of engagement and community in the cities he calls home: Fresno and New York. The question Leavenworth tasked Levine with for the evening–as part of the Zócalo/Cal Humanities “Searching for Democracy Series,” at Frank’s Place in Fresno–was whether the country’s increasing social isolation is a threat …
