A student of mine pointed out that “The Emperor of Ice Cream” endorses living in the moment. That, he thought, is what Stevens means by “Let be be finale of seem.” I agreed and responded that it was an Epicurean poem, sure in the moment that I had read that somewhere. I still think I have but don’t remember where and searching for Stevens and … Continue reading 253. (Wallace Stevens)
Amy Clampitt’s “Nothing Stays Put” opens with an allusion to Wordsworth’s “The World is Too Much With Us,” and the turn her allusion takes is indicative of what she makes of the excess of the world: “The strange and wonderful are too much with us.” That line itself can be heard numerous ways: the description itself, “how strange and wonderful” is too often spoken and … Continue reading 207. (Amy Clampitt)
Stevens’ poetry is the culmination of romantic idealism, and in comprehending its method and ambitions, the words of philosopher Sebastian Rödl (from his most recent work, Self-Consciousness and Objectivity) are apposite: This explains what may appear a curious character of the present essay: it propounds no theses, advances no hypotheses, does not recommend a view or position; it does not give arguments that are to support a … Continue reading 200. (Wallace Stevens)
For Keats, the question of whether it is enough to receive this world on its own terms. For Stevens, as we will see, the most realized commitment of what it means for a person to do just that. Both evolve from a notion of the poet as actively receiving the world, and thereby, in so actively receiving it, actively apprehending its shape. That notion of … Continue reading 198. (Robert Browning)
Some have felt with exasperation what Keats may have worried over himself: that his poetry can be attended by the thought that this is what it looks like for a person to play at being a poet. Hence Kingsley Amis: “Poetry was for Keats a matter of ‘O Poesy, of Apollo, the Muses, and inspired bards…According to Mr. Robert Graves (I cannot track this anecdote), … Continue reading 197. (John Keats)
When you start out with a feeling of alienation—from an unspoken, blank, or meaningless past—from a mass of others, or even single others, in the present–or from a future defined by a fraudulent and thin promise—the risks are either cynical withdrawal, refusing to believe that the estrangement can be overcome, or else sentimentality, the insistence that a momentary, blazing common feeling be allowed to outshine … Continue reading 152. (Wallace Stevens)
She is said to be reticent; it is the title and subject of a monograph on her work, and recently I read a poet remarking on having learned from her the lesson of reticence in a poem. But calling Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry or poetic voice “reticent” gets things the wrong way around. She is eager and seeking–and the world itself is too reserved for her; … Continue reading 138. (Elizabeth Bishop)
