FRESNO, Calif. — Philip Levine, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose intimate portraits of blue-collar life were grounded in personal experience and political conscience, died Saturday at 87.

Levine was the country’s poet laureate in 2011-2012.

A native of Detroit and son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Levine was profoundly shaped by his working-class childhood and years spent in jobs ranging from driving a truck to assembling parts at a Chevrolet plant.

He won the Pulitzer in 1995 for “The Simple Truth” and National Book Awards for the 1979 collection “Ashes” and for “What Work Is.” He also received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.