Wallace Stevens

Our full week discussion of Wallace Stevens has come to an end and since we started this I remember the professor saying something about Stevens. Professor Nicosia brought up the idea of Stevens writing being the Great American Poem or a Stream of Conscience. I have been looking back to the other poets and wondering if they have that mainstream American voice that we can say is "AMERICA IN A POEM!!!". It is almost impossible in my mind to pinpoint the voice but I still find myself saying which of these poets is the Great American Poet. I almost feel like that is the first thing I ask myself when reading these poems now Are you the American poet I have been looking for?


Anyway, Stevens is one of those poets that leaves a lot of things open to interpretation between "The Emperor of Ice Cream" and "Anecdote of the Jar" there is some much to find and look for. I wanted to take a look at another poem we didn't discuss in class that being "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", I am a sucker for the titles of poems it is almost like an advertisement to me. The poem is set up very neatly for any sort of disillusionment but the lines that follow get all screwed up, there are lions and colors and baboons. I see this poem as misleading and maybe that fun prank side of Stevens coming out to play with us. I would probally read this to a younger person and see what they get out of it as it can be seen in our minds. The haunting is where things get tricky and what houses and where are they in this poem. The mind of a child could be having these nightmares more often than the fun type of fun baboon chasing dreams. This would be a great activity to have in a highschool or middle school class room to compare them and see where they stand on this poem.

NOTE: I want to be a teacher so sometimes I put things in a classroom context