26 June 2007

The canonical Wallace Stevens

"You know then that it is not the reason / That makes us happy or unhappy" Of Mere Being (1954)

"Every time the bucks went clattering / Over Oklahoma" Earthy Anecdote

"I know noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms" Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

"I set my traps / in the midst of dreams" Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks

"Ah! douce campagna of that thing!" The Well Dressed Man With A Beard

"When this yokel comes maundering, / Whetting his hacker" The Plot Against The Giant

"What is all this? / I know how furiously your heart is beating" Gray Room

"...bid him whip / In kitchen cups concupiscent curds" The Emperor of Ice-Cream

"The world is ugly, / And the people are sad" Gubbinal

"It made the slovenly wilderness / Surround that hill" Anecdote of the Jar

"He felt a subtle quiver, / That was not heavenly love, / Or pity" Cy est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et les Unze Mille Vierges

"Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, / And the green freedom of a cockatoo" Sunday Morning (long)

"It was at that time, that the silence was largest / And longest, the night was roundest, / The fragrance of the autumn warmest, / Closest and strongest" On the Road Home

"The houses are haunted / By white night-gowns" Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock

"Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan / Of tan with henna hackles, halt!" Bantams in Pine-woods

"But that things go round and again go round / Has rather a classical sound" The Pleasures of Merely Circulating

"The house was quiet and the world was calm. / The reader became the book" The House Was Quiet And The World Was Calm

"What syllable are you seeking, / Vocalissimus" To The Roaring Wind

"...comes flinging / Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames" Nomad Exquisite

"Beauty is momentary in the mind — / The fitful tracing of a portal; / But in the flesh it is immortal" Peter Quince at the Clavier

"Out of the tomb we bring Badroulbadour" The Worms at Heaven's Gate

"Bonnie and Josie, / Dressed in calico" Life Is Motion

"The beams of the huge night / Converged upon its image, / Until the wind blew" Valley Candle

Some canon-worthy titles (not the poems, just the titles):
The Bird with Coppery, Keen Claws
The Man Whose Pharynx was Bad
Le Monocle de mon Oncle
No Possum, No Sop, No Taters
The Poem that Took the Place of a Mountain
Sea Surface Full of Clouds
United Dames of America





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