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With Wallace Stevens emerging as a father figure for American poetry of the late twentieth century, Mark Halliday argues that it is time for this "poet of ideas" to undergo an ethical critique. In this bold, accessible reconsideration of Stevens' work, he insists on the importance of interpersonal relations in any account of human life in the modern world. Although Stevens outwardly denies aspects of life that center on such relations as those between friends, lovers, family members, and political constituents, Halliday uncovers in his poetry an anxious awareness of the importance of these relations. Here we see the difficulties Stevens made for himself in wanting to offer a thoroughly satisfying version of secular spiritual health in the modern world without facing up to the moral and psychological implications of his own interpersonal needs, problems, and responsibilities. The final chapter reveals, however, an unusually encouraging "avuncular" attitude toward the reader of the poetry, which may be felt to redeem Stevens from the alienation observed earlier. Halliday develops his views by way of comparisons between Stevens and other poets, especially Thomas Hardy, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and John Ashbery. ... Read more

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THE VOICE OF THE POET

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliography, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

"Hearing poetry spoken by the poet is always a unique illumination. This series opens our ears to some of the most passionate utterances and enthralling performances ever recorded."--Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize winner, Poetry

"There has been a great need for a well-edited audio series for poetry, with high literary and technical quality. J. D. McClatchy has filled this need with great style."--Robert Pinsky ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Voice of Nobility
Stevens' voice is slow and deep.His readings show that he is rediscovering his own poems with each reading.His voice is not "weak and meek" like the first reviewer says. Especially "Key West," Stevens' recitation will give you new incite to his poems.

The literal character, the vatic line...
Stevens is a meditative, mantic, hieratic poet, hence his auditory manner is majestically reflective, slow, & oracular. If you know & care for his poetry his readings are revelatory of its sounds, gestures, gait. It may not be what you expect. It may well be an acquired taste. But once you have his voice in your inner ear you respond to his work as you read it in a more knowing - slower & measured - way. A pity we don't have more of him, more poems from "Harmonium," & especially readings of the longer works, in particular his supreme masterwork, "Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction." But if only for "Large Red Man Reading," "To an old Philosopher in Rome," and "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" this album is indispensable. I can't complain about audience noises - what little we have of Stevens is valuable beyond measure.

Caveat About Stevens' Voice
Those who have never heard Wallace Stevens read any of his poetry should be forewarned that his voice is quite weak and meek.For so large a man, his voice is as little as a mouse.The rewards for those dedicated to Stevens' poetry is, however, great.The intesity and simplicity of the meaning of the poems he reads is transmitted by the emphasis placed by his own voice.You have no doubt what the poem is about when you hear Stevens read them.That's revelatory.But those who hope to hear the stirring performance of a Dylan Thomas or the range of a Richard Burton should listen elsewhere. ... Read more

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This book presents for the first time a thorough study of the imagery in Wallace Steven's poetry and the patterns which these images form. Heretofore, most discussions of Steven's work presupposed an understanding of the difficult and bizarre surface imagery and dealt mainly with broad generalizations which often left the student of Stevens' poems unsatisfied. The brilliant surface of the poems, the detailed imagery of specific passages, is here examined clearly and systematically. The images, indexed at the back of the book, are examined in four natural groups: Figures of the Mind, of Disorder, of Order, and of Change. The last half of the book is concerned with close analyses of some longer poems of Stevens' using the information gleaned from the "Anatomy" of the first half. There is also an index to the many poems in the book ... Read more

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Stevens' poetry undermines the safeguarded classifications people use to contain knowledge. Political labels were prominent in 1930s America, when Marxism led many writers to prioritize politics over aesthetics. Stevens' poetry employs rhetoric to show that art and state function through similar appeals, and that these forms of persuasion govern history. The long poem, "Owl's Clover," responds to Depression ideologies by dramatizing the nominal barriers people construct to stem their fears. This study also responds to critical misapprehension about "Owl's Clover", and argues that the poem's rhetorical poetics are crucial to understanding Stevens' complete poetry as an ethical challenge to the destructive and rigidly repetitive routes of history. ... Read more

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This study addresses the problem of meaning as it is conveyed by poetic language, attempting to move beyond some of the obstacles and boundaries of contemporary critical approaches. By providing a phenomenological context, and through a theoretical contemplation of certain myths as embodiments of the tacit 'logic' of poetry, the book argues that poems convey meaning much the way that spontaneous unreadable gestures do. The poetic gesture bears a silent, inarticulate linguistic being of its own form that arises within and alongside the poem as an unreadable gesture, and that bridges with insistent sound, for the poem's moment, the distance between meaning and speech. Moving between theory and practice, and drawing upon the poetry of Wallace Stevens whose work is embedded with a richness and complexity of gesture, the author shows how the poetic text sustains and embodies an inconvertible, ancient and innately human form of linguistic knowledge. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Highly recommended
In this extremely useful book for understanding the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Lensing effortlessly traces the poet's life and development as those were important in determining the sort of writer Stevens would become.Many Stevens poems are explicated in terms of their original context, and a lot of fascinating information is provided about the nature of the poetry "establishment" of the early 20th century, and how important such sponsorship and networking was for Stevens' emergence as a major voice.

This book deserves much more attention from Stevens fans that it seems to enjoy. It is very well written, a work of erudition and scholarship that avoids the all of the pedantry and other typical negatives of its genre. If you're a reader of Stevens, this is a book well worth owning. ... Read more

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American poet Wallace Stevens has been at the centre of most major critical controversies of the 20th century, from the early emergence of New Criticism through the past decade's battles over poststructuralism. This collection of 10 essays by scholars of Stevens and modernism explores various aspects of the feminine in Steven's writings and his life. Together, the essays demonstrate how a focus on gender provides new insights into Steven's poetry and life, and new perspectives on the nature of language and poetic voice, the social and cultural shaping of American poetry and the viability of current critical debates. "Wallace Stevens and the Feminine" is divided into two parts. The essays in the first section, "Texts", concentrate on the centrality of the feminine in Steven's poetry and his search for poetic expression. Those in the second section, "Contexts", explore the influence of Stevens on contemporary female poets and his relationships with women, the impact of sociocultural conceptions of gender roles on the poet, and how these themes have intersected with Steven's art.In addition to the editor, contributors include Mary Arensburg, Jacqueline Vaught Brogan, Barbara Fisher, Celeste Goodridge, Paul Morrison, Daniel T. O'Hara, Rosamond Rosenmeier, Lisa M. Steinman and C. Roland Wagner. ... Read more