Whatever Happened To Lady Chatterly's Lover? Poem by gershon hepner

Whatever happened to Lady Chatterly’s lover?
asked Martin Levin. Was the potent keeper game
enough to wait for her in hope and hover
around until divorce relit the phallic flame
her husband couldn’t. Lawrence doesn’t tell us.
Perhaps she found another man, or he
was taken back by lonely Mrs. Mellors,
re-husbanded to Connie’s former employee.

Margalit Fox writes an obituary of Martin Levin, a former book reviewer of the NYT whose first book was called “What Ever Happened to Lady Chatterly’s Lover”:

Martin Emanuel Levin was born in Manhattan on March 18,1919. Growing up in Greenwich Village, he read through the entire children’s room, from A to Z, of the old Jackson Square branch of the New York Public Library, on Eighth Avenue and 13th Street. Mr. Levin earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Columbia University. In World War II he served with the Army Air Forces in Europe, where, his son said, his duties included commanding a mission to Gibraltar to procure duty-free Scotch and bananas. From the late 1950s to the early ’70s, Mr. Levin compiled a regular humor column for The Saturday Review. Called the Phoenix Nest, it featured original contributions from writers like George S. Kaufman, James Thurber and Ogden Nash. Besides his son, Mr. Levin is survived by a daughter, Andrea Levin, and two grandchildren, all of Manhattan. His wife, the former Selene Holzman, whom he married in 1947, died in 2000.Mr. Levin’s books include “Whatever Happened to Lady Chatterley’s Lover? ” (Andrews, McMeel & Parker,1985) , in which he speculated satirically on the fates of various fictional characters. He edited several anthologies, among them “The Phoenix Nest” (Doubleday,1960) and “The Bedside Phoenix Nest” (Washburn,1965) . But it was as a critic that Mr. Levin was undoubtedly best known. This was never more apparent than on April 7,1963, when The Times Book Review returned to print after a 114-day newspaper strike. Mr. Levin marked the occasion by reviewing 38 books at once.

© 2008 Gershon Hepner 5/30/08