Explore the poem

On one level, ‘To the Snake’ vividly describes a ‘Green Snake’. Note the use of sibilance (repetition of ‘s’ sounds) to create a powerful description of the hiss of the snake in the poem. Levertov uses words like ‘pulsing’, ‘scales’, ‘swore’, ‘smiling’ and ‘grass’.

The poem seems to work on a series of contrasts and a sense of attraction and repulsion. The snake is not draped around the neck but ‘hung’. The tender word ‘stroked’ is used to describe touching the throat of the snake, which is ‘cold’,  suggesting a lack of emotion and life, but the snake is also ‘pulsing’, which clearly gives the idea of warmth and life. She assures her friends that the snake is harmless, but even she is not convinced that she will not be harmed. She moves into a dark morning ‘smiling’ but also ‘haunted’.

Consider the use of symbolism in the poem. The American dollar is sometimes called a ‘greenback’. Might this be a poem about the seductive power and danger of gambling? What else might be associated with ‘green’? Shakespeare wrote about jealousy as a ‘green‑eyed monster’. The snake, of course, is strongly associated with the temptation in the Garden of Eden.

About Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov was born and educated at home in England. She was determined to be a writer from an early age, and her first book, The Double Image, was published when she was only twenty‑three.

She worked as a civilian nurse during the Second World War and married an American shortly after the end of the war, before moving permanently to America. Her early work had been relatively formal and in the tradition of Neo‑Romanticism popular in the 1940s.

From the 1960s onwards Levertov became more politically active, and this is reflected in her work. She responded in her poetry to the Vietnam War and explored issues such as feminism, religion and the role of the individual within society.

She worked for much of the last part of her life in American universities and published over twenty collections of poetry, translations and criticism before her death in 1997.

Read more about Denise Levertov in the
American National Biography