num_pages: 96
description: Philip Levine's new collection of poems (his first since The Simple Truth was awarded the Pulitzer Prize) is a book of the necessary ones that each of us takes from innocence to experience, from youth to age, from confusion to clarity, from sanity to madness and back again, from life to death, and occasionally from defeat to triumph. The book's mood is best captured in the closing lines of the title poem, which takes its name from the ship that brought the poet's mother to A nine-year-old girl travels all night by train with one suitcase and an orange. She learns that mercy is something you can eat again and again while the juice spills over your chin, you can wipe it away with the back of your hands and you can never get enough.
language: English
title: The Mercy
titlecomplete: The Mercy
genres: Poetry
ratings_count: 182
awards: awardedAt: 915177600000
name: California Book Award
category: Poetry (Silver)
publisher: Knopf