Wallace Stevens

1. Wallace Stevens By Layla Cummings

2. Continual Conversation With A Silent Man The old brown hen and the old blue sky,Between the two we live and die--The broken cartwheel on the hill.As if, in the presence of the sea,We dried our nets and mended sailAnd talked of never-ending things,Of the never-ending storm of will,One will and many wills, and the wind,Of many meanings in the leaves,Brought down to one below the eaves,Link, of that tempest, to the farm,The chain of the turquoise hen and skyAnd the wheel that broke as the cart went by.It is not a voice that is under the eaves.It is not speech, the sound we hearIn this conversation, but the soundOf things and their motion: the other man,A turquoise monster moving round.

3. This poem is describes a perpetual circle of life and living that is integral part of existence. The feeling of this piece is one of endlessness and without boundary. It has a somber tone, one of astringent connection to the environment and being one with the world. The ‘Silent man’ seems to be a collective conscience, an overall feeling to which the farm, the eaves, the hen and the sky are connected.

4. I enjoy this poem because of how deep and interwoven it is to the concept of existence, I think it really captures a sense of eternity that is extremely difficult to put into words. The author is successful at painting a really intricate picture of concepts form very simple imagery like that of a farm.

5. Hymn From A Watermelon Pavilion You dweller in the dark cabin, To whom the watermelon is always purple, Whose garden is wind and moon, Of the two dreams, night and day, What lover, what dreamer, would choose The one obscured by sleep? Here is the plantain by your door And the best cock of red feather That crew before the clocks. A feme may come, leaf-green, Whose coming may give revel Beyond revelries of sleep, Yes, and the blackbird spread its tail, So that the sun may speckle, While it creaks hail. You dweller in the dark cabin, Rise, since rising will not waken, And hail, cry hail, cry hail.

6. This poem is in a dream like state, it is composed of making choices without reason, and following obscured paths for the sole purpose of departing. The vague melancholic tone represents a sense absent-mindedness in the speaker, the dreamer. I really like the use of imagery, like in the other poem, the simplistic garden and natural elements make a certain tone that really captures a careless but heavy feeling.

7. Tattoo The light is like a spider.It crawls over the water.It crawls over the edges of the snow.It crawls under your eyelidsAnd spreads its webs there--Its two webs.The webs of your eyesAre fastenedTo the flesh and bones of youAs to rafters or grass.There are filaments of your eyesOn the surface of the waterAnd in the edges of the snow.

8. This poem has a delicate and complicated feel too it, as if the perception of the ‘tattoo’ itself is spider webs entering the ones eye as they view it. It’s not about the visual image itself, but rather how the person in the poem goes about viewing that image. The imagery goes into the eye itself, how it is “There are filaments of your eyes, On the surface of the water, And in the edges of the snow.” shows the detail given to the eye as it views the tattoo.

9. Why is it modernism? • The poems are free-verse • They are about abstract concepts for the most part • Difficult to interpret. • The poems do have a sort of structure, but they are unique to the authors own style

11. I think this photograph and Wallace Stevens are parallel. The photograph has very dreamlike colors like blues and yellows, also natural elements like the tree in the background. It also has a free flowing serene feeling, but with a sort of a desolate tone as well with the abandoned bird house in the picture. All these elements are related to Stevens poetry.