About two thirds of the poems in Denise Levertov’s Footprints were written concurrently with the long “notebook” poem that began to take shape in Relearning the Alphabet (1970) and reached full expression in To Stay Alive (1971), to which it lent its name. Most of the remaining material was composed subsequently. Readers familiar with these previous volumes, so emphatically political in theme, will discover a more reflective tone, indeed a note which touches on the mystical, pervading this newest collection. The antiwar motif, however, is by no means lacking. And in such poems as “Overheard over S. E. Asia” and “The Day the Audience Walked Out on Me, and Why” the strength of Miss Levertov’s social commitment is, as always, given powerful utterance.