Remembering Never

I found it interesting how Stevens thought of calling Harmonium "Grand Poem: Preliminary Minutiae. At one point he wanted his entire collection of poetry to be called The Whole Of Harmonium. Reading the poems in the harmonium as one large poem creates a different expiernce, for me at least. As if each poem is contributing to a bigger vision, a grand story telling through the culmination of each poem.

 I believe it was through the long poems I've been reading in On Extended Wings, that stevens was able to discover his strengths. Stevens talks about the poets subject, and how it provokes his sense of the world. A man's sense of the world dictates his subjects to him, and this sense is derived from his personality. And his personality manifests itself from the poets style.

On Extended Wings has pointed out how stevens resorts to words of uncertainty, or "skeptical music" in his poetry. In reading any of the poems in Harmonium, we see may, might, must, could, should and would resolve his poems. As if using the present tense would imply succesfull action, and it can be performed again with succeful action. Ive discovered this sense of "openendness" in his poetry, as if something or someone is searching for something in a lucid dream without direction. Perhaps stevens doesnt want his poetry the the reader what will happen and how it happen yet leave that up to the reader to interpret.

On Broken Wings

I finally found some time between 18 credits and three jobs to start reading On Extended Wings, the book Dr. Sexon gave me. The book focuses on fourteen of the longer poems that Stevens wrote over the span of thirty years. The author Helen Hennessy Vendler suggests that these poems deserve equal fame and consideration to his more popular, shorter works. Stevens central theme, the worth of the imagination remained with him throughout his entire life. Vendler suggest that his development as a poet can best be seen, not in description—which must be repetitive— of the abstract bases of his work, but rather in a view of his changing styles.

"Stevens was engaged in constant experimentation all his life in an attempt to find the appropriate vehicle for his expansive consciousness; he found it in his later poems, which surpass in value the rest of his work."

I'm looking forward to her analysis of his work and the deconstruction of his poems and how they compare to his shorter works in the harmonium.

Unpackables

A Postcard from the Volcano
      by Wallace Stevens



Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of things, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is ... Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.      

Perhaps their young  minds will never know. The life that once used to be. Their innocent wonder of the mansion that once was. My Old bones leave a wake of despair. Young children fill in the blanks. Nothing to leave behind or look forward to. A dead man waits. They are the voice of the dead, he lives through their words. Consequences of a past destroyed. Re lived through thier thoughts and words whether we like it or not. Survived from a past that is destroyed. A ghost, a past, a memory: survival of the present through memories of the past. where good can come from it all. 

First post!

Tediously working my way through the harmonium I'm quickly reminded how bad I am at reading poetry. Reading out loud has it's benefits, but Stevens always manages to make me re-read three or four lines before I finish. This semester I hope to develop and grow towards a critical and proficient mind that can deconstruct these mysterious works of art that Stevens writes on the page. As I read over your blogs its obvious many of my peers have already figured this out, and I'll also be learning from you as well as Dr. Sexon.

Stenvens' poetry is unlike most poetry I've read. When I hear poetry i think, Shell Silverstein, Robert Frost and Edward Abbey. I believe Stevens poetry has a lot more in store for me if im willing to really analyze them. If I only scratch the surface at least I can enjoy his use of words and the balancing act between reality and the imagination.


Dr. Sexon passed around a bag of books yesterday and I managed to pull, On Extended Wings, out of the bag. Between a tattered book jacket on faded print Helen Hennessy Vandler examines, Longer Poems by Wallace Stevens. I'm looking forward to reading sections of the book, especially the ones Dr. Sexon has underlined.