The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle: New and Selected Poems

The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle: New and Selected PoemsA lifelong academic and teacher, Charles Levenstein has written poetry since the age of fifteen but was rarely published until the year 2000. Toward the end of his career, he watched one of his peers find comfort in projects outside the university environment. His peer built a sailboat as a form of solace and escape. Levensteinnever good with toolssought a similar peace from the pressures of teaching. He then developed sleep apnea, which kept him

A lifelong academic and teacher, Charles Levenstein has written poetry since the age of fifteen but was rarely published until the year 2000. Toward the end of his career, he watched one of his peers find comfort in projects outside the university environment. His peer built a sailboat as a form of solace and escape. LevensteinÑnever good with toolsÑsought a similar peace from the pressures of teaching.

He then developed sleep apnea, which kept him awake most nights. Instead of suffering in the dark, he got up and found his tool: the written word. He lost himself in poetry. Some of the work was therapeutic, working through the inevitable sorrows and losses of a long life.

The Ponderous Galapagos Turtle is the culmination of fifteen years of poetic practice. The symbol of the turtle is one of endurance and strength. To Levenstein, turtles may not be spectacular, but they surviveÑas do humans. Certain truths embrace the human spirit in us all and rise to the surface like a turtle taking a breath.