Philip Levine, born in 1928, American poet, known for his straightforward, proselike verse that documents and celebrates the lives of working people fighting boredom and hopelessness in the modern industrial workplace. His collection Simple Truth (1994) was awarded the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Levine was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. He was educated at Wayne University (now Wayne State University) in Detroit, earning a B.A. degree in 1950 and an M.A. degree in 1954. During his college years Levine worked at a succession of industrial jobs. In 1955 he joined the faculty at the University of Iowa, where he received an M. F. A. (master of fine arts) degree in 1957. In 1958 he began teaching at California State University in Fresno, and in 1981 he became a professor at Tufts University. In 1993 he retired from teaching.

Levine’s first book, On the Edge (1961), established his enduring concern for ordinary, working people. Both They Feed They Lion (1972) and 1933 (1974) feature strong narrative poems about oppressive working conditions and the lives of workers. As a child Levine became fascinated with the events that culminated in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and has celebrated the 1930s anarchist movement in Spain, especially in Names of the Lost (1976). In this volume he links Detroit with the Spanish city of Barcelona as places where oppressed workers labor under brutal ruling classes. Levine won the 1991 National Book Award for poetry with What Work Is (1991). His Pulitzer Prize-winning 15th volume of poetry, Simple Truth, explores issues of loss and change by looking at the past from the perspective of the present.

Levine has also written a memoir, The Bread of Time: Toward an Autobiography (1994). This collection of nine essays includes recollections of his studies with American poets Yvor Winters and John Berryman.