Stevens loved vacationing in Florida to escape the Connecticut winters for a while. What is the speaker’s response to the tropical imagery in this poem? Note the many word-repetitions in this poem. And note the alliteration (repeated consonants) in the last two lines. What is the effect of so much repetition?
Nomad Exquisite
by Wallace Stevens
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth
The big-finned palm
And green vine angering for life,
As the immense dew of Florida
Brings forth hymn and hymn
From the beholder,
Beholding all these green sides
And gold sides of green sides,
And blessed mornings,
Meet for the eye of the young alligator,
And lightning colors
So, in me, come flinging
Forms, flames, and the flakes of flames.
Glossary
Exquisite: highly sensitive or perceptive; having good judgment
meet: suitable, appropriate
Wallace Stevens, "Nomad Exquisite" from Harmonium. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Public domain.)