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Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully. Wallace Stevens		Thursday May 15, 2025
		Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969

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One reads poetry with one's nerves. Wallace Stevens

Quote Author: Wallace Stevens

	Wallace Stevens
	Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 - August 2, 1955) was a major American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and spent most of his adult life working for an insurance company in Connecticut. His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar," "The Emperor of Ice Cream," "The Idea of Order at Key West," "Sunday Morning ," and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Read More

Other Wallace Stevens Quotes

They said, 'You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are'. The man replied, 'Things as they are Are changed upon a blue guitar'.

Poetry is the supreme fiction, Madame.

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

They said, 'You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.' The man replied, 'Things as they are Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.

Edward estlin cummings oh, my heart leaps: born cambridge, MA 105 years ago harvard paris 900 poems... ingenuity. Arranging feelings; words; syllables; punctuation on paper a celebration of magic love passion Godsky life OH joy of being alive! sweetness thank You.

After the final no there comes a yes and on that yes the future of the world depends.

All of our ideas come from the natural world: trees equal umbrellas.

Life is an affair of people not of places. But for me, life is an affair of places and that is the trouble.

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.

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.

A poem is a meteor.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird. II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds. III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a s

One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees, crusted with snow, And have been cold a long time, to behold the junipers, shagged with ice, the spruces, rough in the distant glitter of the January sun, and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land, full of the same wind, blowing in the same bare place for the listener, who listens in the snow, and, nothing herself, beholds nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.

It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedarlimbs.

At evening casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Beauty is momentary in the mind. The fitful tracing of a portal; But in the flesh it is immortal. The Body dies; the body's beauty lives. So evenings die, in their green going, A wave, interminably flowing. So gardens die, their meek breath scenting The cowl of Winter, done repenting.

Everything possessed the power to transform itself, or else, and what meant more, to be transformed.

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.

It must be this rhapsody or none, The rhapsody of things as they are.

My tribute to mystical, magical trees that the Cherokee called 'standing people....'

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.

Aristotle is a skeleton.

After one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption.

One cannot spend one's time in being modern when there are so many more important things to be.

A poet looks at the world as a man looks at a woman.

The poet makes silk dresses out of worms.

All poetry is experimental poetry.

One reads poetry with one's nerves.

Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully.

Realism is a corruption of reality.

Thought tends to collect in pools.

Trees Trees, proud standing people stretching fingertips to the sky, reaching, praying glorious attention, breathing light. strength shelter timeless confidence bending and firm comforting rooted chorus line dancing with the moon, the wind, the clouds framing bursts of stars tender rugged celebration absorbing and releasing life each holy branch holding the power of the Universe. There.