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Comments about Wallace Stevens
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Richard Iordano
(11/9/2009 3:47:00 AM)
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Hi The Library of America volume of Stevens' collected poetry and prose page 311 -312,4th stanza reads, ' Wanted to lean, wnated much most to be...' I thought it was a very weird line. I looked here and of course you have it differently.'...wanted most to be.
There is a typo in the Library of America vol? Are there any more?
thanks and let me know
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Richard Moores
(5/15/2006 10:36:00 AM)
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You have a serious punctuation error in the first stanza of Sunday Morning.
The line,
'The day is like wide water, without sound.'
should end in a comma, not a period. Thus:
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
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Lamont Palmer
(2/1/2006 1:41:00 AM)
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Stevens is quite possibly the greatest poet of the 20th century. His neologistic and beautiful words defy the limitations of the concrete world and explores the depths of the imagination. And the fact that he led a very quiet, uneventful life in CT, while creating his gorgeous poetry makes him even more fascinating. I think his reclusive life strengthened his work, intensified it. If not the greatest poet of them all, he was certainly the purest. His influence will forever be felt.
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The High-Toned Old Christian Woman
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Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven.Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle.That's clear.But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets.Thus, our bawdiness,
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