Portrait of Denise Levertov

Birthday profile

Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov, British-born American poet (died 1997)

Born
October 24, 1923
Died
December 20, 1997
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1923

About Denise Levertov

Priscilla Denise Levertov was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was heavily influenced by the Black Mountain poets and by the political context of the Vietnam War, which she explored in her poetry book The Freeing of the Dust. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. In 1940, when she was 17, Levertov published her first poem. Her father, Paul Levertoff, had been a teacher at Leipzig University and as a Russian Hasidic Jew was held under house arrest during the First World War as an "enemy alien" by virtue of his ethnicity. Her first book, The Double Image, was published six years later.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Denise Levertov was born

Denise Levertov was born in 1923. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1923

  • #1 song"Yes! We Have No Bananas"
  • Top movieThe Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille)
  • Best-selling bookBlack Oxen – Gertrude Atherton

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst 24 Hours of Le Mans race
  • Top headlineTime magazine publishes its first issue
  • Technology milestoneFirst neon signs appear in the United States
  • Defining fadDance marathons
  • Notable inventionFrozen food process (Clarence Birdseye)
  • World population1.93 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderWarren G. Harding / Calvin Coolidge
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population111.9M

1923 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Denise Levertov's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19232026
Gas$0.22$3.45/gal
Average home$5,700$435,000
Average income$3,380$67,500
Movie ticket$0.15$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population111.9M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.