Wallace Stevens

[quasimodo1]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose

from Uncollected Poems

ROMANCE FOR A DEMOISELLE LYING IN THE GRASS

It is grass.
It is monotonous.

The monotony
Is like your port which conceals
All your characters
And their desires.

I might make many images of this
And twang nobler notes
Of larger sentiment.

But I invoke the monotony of monotonies
Free from images and change.

Why should I savor love
With tragedy or comedy?

Clasp me,
Delicatest machine.

{1919-1920?}

[quasimodo1]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose
from Uncollected Poems

THE SHAPE OF THE CORONER

It was the morn
And the palms were waved
And the brass was played
Then the coroner came
In his limpid shoes.

The palms were waved
For the beau of illusions.
The termagant fans
Of his orange days
Fell, famous and flat,
And folded him round,

Folded and fell
And the brass grew cold
And the coroner's hand
Dismissed the band.

It was the coroner
Poured this elixir
Into the ground,
And a shabby man,
An eye too sleek,
And a biscuit cheek.

And the coroner bent
Over the palms.
The elysium lay
In a parlor of day.

{1923}

[Virgil]

Hey Virgil, I was having a hard time pulling a visual on those porters. Thanks.

Let's hope we don't actually run into any.

[quasimodo1]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose
from Uncollected Poems

LULU GAY

Lulu sang of barbarians before the eunuchs
Of gobs, who called her orchidean,
Sniffed her and slapped heavy hands
Upon her.
She made the eunuchs ululate.
She described for them
The manners of the barbarians
What they did with their thumbs.
The eunuchs heard her
With continual ululation.
She described how the barbarians kissed her
With their wide mouths
And breaths as true
As the gum of the gum-tree.
"Olu" the eunuchs cried. "Ululalu"

{1921}

[Virgil]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose
from Uncollected Poems

LULU GAY

Lulu sang of barbarians before the eunuchs
Of gobs, who called her orchidean,
Sniffed her and slapped heavy hands
Upon her.
She made the eunuchs ululate.
She described for them
The manners of the barbarians
What they did with their thumbs.
The eunuchs heard her
With continual ululation.
She described how the barbarians kissed her
With their wide mouths
And breaths as true
As the gum of the gum-tree.
"Olu" the eunuchs cried. "Ululalu"

{1921}

That is great!! Pure Stevens humor. He could be so analytical and then be so down to earth. This is great. ")

[quasimodo1]

For Stevens, that has to be the most humorous piece yet.

[Jozanny]

To return way way back to the beginning of this thread, with the famous "Emperor", just as a technical matter, it is very difficult to read the first stanza and maintain your speaking poise:

The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds

Tragi-comically a playful piece? Maybe, but Stevens seems to refuse the reader the ease of entering into the poetic narrative, without getting your tush jilted by potholes. "Concupiscent" is a lovely word, playful, slightly lewd, but I can guarantee you my editors today would put a bullet through my eyes for such alliteration.

As practiced as I am, I could not perform this poem for an audience.

[quasimodo1]

It's not "The Emporer of Ice Cream" ... is it? On your account JoZ, I'll return to Stevens less tacky work.

[Jozanny]

I don't know enough of Stevens to makes any judgments about tacky, though I'd love to know how he got that line through a copy editor .

On my account, you will do nothing of the sort but to do what pleases you. I am just a bitter writer who frolics in the sandbox here.

[quasimodo1]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose

from Parts of a World

THE SEARCH FOR SOUND FREE FROM MOTION

All afternoon the gramaphone
Parl-parled the West -Indian weather.
The zebra leaves, the sea
And it all spoke together.

The many-stanzaed sea, the leaves
And it spoke all together.
But you, you used the word,
Your self its honor.

All afternoon the gramaphoon,
All afternoon the gramaphoon,
The world as word,
Parl-parled the West-Indian hurricane.
{excerpt}

{circa. 19442}

[Virgil]

I don't know enough of Stevens to makes any judgments about tacky, though I'd love to know how he got that line through a copy editor .

On my account, you will do nothing of the sort but to do what pleases you. I am just a bitter writer who frolics in the sandbox here.

I haven't forgotten that I promised to send you some of my favorite Stevens poems Jozy. I'm planning on doing that tomorrow.

[Nick Capozzoli]

I do take exception to Nick's sophmoric remark; would love to have written something like that, especially with a war in the backround, as Freshman, Senior or PHD.

I meant that it was sophomoric when compared to the stuff in Stevens' Collected Poems...not to the average Freshman to PhD creatuve writng student. Stevens obviously didn't think it was worth collecting, and he was right.

[quasimodo1]

to Nick: I'll withdraw that bit of sarcasm. And he didn't publish it although the decisions about what Stevens got published sometimes was not his own. In this case, I think he demurred. q1

[quasimodo1]

footnote on "Phases" "...525.9...Sections II to V of this group were published in a special 'War Number' of POETRY, November 1914"

[quasimodo1]

from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose

from THE MAN WITH THE BLUE GUITAR XXVII

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.

This gloom is the darkness of the sea.
Geographers and philosophers,

Regard. But for that salty cup,
But for the icicles on the eaves--

The sea is a form of ridicule.
The iceberg settings satirize

The demon that cannot be himself,
That tours to shift the shifting scene.