Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevenswas an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth2 October 1879
CountryUnited States of America
new-york stupid mirrors
New York is a field of tireless and antagonistic interests undoubtedly fascinating but horribly unreal. Everybody is looking at everybody else a foolish crowd walking on mirrors.
philosophy philosopher poet
The philosopher proves that the philosopher exists. The poet merely enjoys existence.
fall rain winter
It is the sea that whitens the roof. The sea drifts through the winter air. It is the sea that the north wind makes. The sea is in the falling snow.
beautiful mother pain
Like the Sweetness of Gardenias Mother, you died 15 years ago. pain, a rapier, cut until, finally, there was just peace like the sweetness of gardenias in the crystal vase on your yellow kitchen table. so fragrant. your voice lingers in my ear reminding, scolding, guiding a pleasant mantra of tenderness, magic words that move my palms, your palms. together we are molding, helping, creating. in the mirror I see your eyes, your beautiful brown circles looking back, so radiant. "don't forget me," you whispered the day you died. I won't.
imagination world vapid
Imagination applied to the whole world is vapid in comparison to imagination applied to a detail.
important modern modernism
One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.
love art thinking
I can't make head or tail of Life. Love is a fine thing, Art is a fine thing, Nature is a fine thing; but the average human mind and spirit are confusing beyond measure. Sometimes I think that all our learning is the little learning of the maxim. To laugh at a Roman awe-stricken in a sacred grove is to laugh at something today.
sweet hurt honesty
LIGHT FROM WITHIN my friend, cancer got you damn it: you had it beat for seven years at least. how did it come back? Why all that pain. again. and you, such a fighter you fought me over and over with tears and words and promises. you fought for me with honesty and a light so bright it hurts my heart. sweet lorna. at peace now finally no more battles, just light from within a flickering candle in the dark burns with you.
summer winter july
The consolations of space are nameless things. It was after the neurosis of winter. It was In the genius of summer that they blew up The statue of Jove among the boomy clouds. It took all day to quieten the sky And then to refill its emptiness again....
music silence listening
I do not know which to prefer - The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
sight light bird
At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.
ice sky january
It is deep January. The sky is hard. The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.
men august february
Tinsel in February, tinsel in August. There are things in a man besides his reason.
eye sea tree
I measure myself Against a tall tree I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way the ants crawl In and out of my shadow.