“Something More: Denise Levertov and the Poetry of Transformation” with Fr. Kevin Burke, SJ
Lecture: November 20, 2025
7-8:30 PM
4th Floor IC, Lake Shore Campus
The Hank Center is delighted to welcome Fr. Kevin Burke, SJ to Loyola’s Lakeshore Campus for our annual Catholic Imaginations lecture about his new book, Opening the Doors of the World, which explores the theological dimensions of the great 20th Century poet, Denise Levertov (1923-1997). Levertov's spirituality, already evident in her earlier poems, became increasingly political during the middle years of her poetic career and, without losing that critical focus, turned explicitly religious in her last two decades. Her innovative work serves as a unique and invaluable guide for discerning both the social (i.e., ethical and political) and the religious dimensions of everyday experiences.
Thursday's in-person lecture focuses specifically on Levertov's poem, "Something More." All are welcome in joining Fr. Burke in exploring Levertov's unique ability to articulate the mystical—the mysterious more—in the seemingly ordinary, workaday world, thus opening new pathways for spiritual encounter.
Retreat: Nov 21–22
St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church
Denise Levertov’s (1923-1997) remarkable poetic journey was always one moving closer and closer to God. She formally entered the Catholic Church later in life and soon after engaged in a six-month process of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola under the direction of a Jesuit Spiritual Director in Seattle. Her poetry and reflections are a well-suited scaffold upon which to structure a retreat and so we are offering an Ignatian style retreat as a second event co-hosted by our friends St. Gregory's Hall and taking place there. Fr. Kevin F. Burke, S.J., will lead; and his deep expertise in drawing the edifying connections and spiritual sustenance that reside in Levertov’s work will be a needed balm for the season.
About Kevin Burke, S.J.
Rev. Kevin F. Burke, S.J. is the Vice President for Mission at Regis University in Colorado. Previously, he served as Executive Dean and a Professor Ordinarius on the ecclesiastical faculty of the Jesuit School of Theology on the Berkeley, California, campus of Santa Clara University. From 1997 to 2006, he was a member of the faculty of Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His first book, The Ground beneath the Cross: The Theology of Ignacio Ellacuria (2000), focuses on the theology of a Salvadoran priest who was one of six Jesuits murdered by the Salvadoran Army in 1989 at the University of Central America along with two women co-workers. He co-edited a collection of essays entitled Love that Produces Hope: The Thought of Ignacio Ellacuria (2006) and edited a collection for the Contemporary Spiritual Masters series, Pedro Arrupe: Essential Writings (2004). Fr. Burke also co-edited a volume entitled The Ignatian Tradition with his sister, Dr. Eileen Burke-Sullivan, a professor of theology at Creighton University.