Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955 / Pennsylvania / United States)

They made us read ths garbage.1/10

I have to agree with C Carey. Stevens was most noted for his exploration of reality and the imagination, and how they are reconciled. This poem is more about the reality of the world lacking an imagination except for a drunk, or rather a man not who is not perceived as part of the mainstream.

Well, I think it's funny - not stupid at all. Poetry doesn't have to be deadly serious. Don't you think?

Thank you Carey for your comment. Some 'poets' have no imagination or a sense of fancy at all, which is why a lot of contemporary poetry is banal, flat, with all the music of a newspaper column. -LP

Not silly at all. The world is all too utterly without imagination. Boring as white nightgowns, without color or vigor or life. Thank goodness for the old drunk who at least has an imagination. That's it, pure and simple, gracefully told.

This bit of puffery is in the Top 500 of poems? It's pretty silly stuff. Perhaps it has an appeal to young children.