What do you think it means to have “a mind of winter” and “not to think / Of any misery in the sound of the wind, / In the sound of a few leaves”? What would the snow man be doing if he did think of “misery” in those things? The poem is all one sentence; why do you think Stevens did that? Why do you think he repeats “nothing” three times in the final stanza? Continue reading The Snow Man
Tag Archives: Poem
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
Here the speaker is bored by all the monotonous “white nightgowns” in his neighborhood—nightgowns presumably worn by his fellow Hartford businessmen who all dress alike, without imagination. He longs for something fresh and unusual, to add interest to this routine life. Why do you think he uses the French word, “ceinture”? What is unusual about the combination of “baboons and periwinkles”? (Think of the sounds of those words.) How do you feel about the old, drunk sailor? Continue reading Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock
Anecdote of the Jar
Stevens thought a lot about the importance of imagination in life. Here the speaker performs one odd, imaginative act—he places a jar on a hilltop. The man-made jar sticks out from the natural scene surrounding it, commanding our attention and becoming a focal point in the landscape. The speaker’s gesture is an example of how we create human order in the world. How does the jar affect the landscape around it? Does the poem suggest that this is a good or a bad thing? How? Continue reading Anecdote of the Jar
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
This poem describes preparations for a wake (a social gathering in memory of a deceased person). The two stanzas contrast the lively and youthful scene in the kitchen with the dead body laid out in the bedroom. Life and death are presented side-by-side. Stevens said the poem is “about being, as distinguished from seeming to be” (L 341). Does this help you interpret the refrain, “The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream”? Stevens called this his favorite poem because it contains “the essential gaudiness of poetry” (L 263). [“gaudy” = bright and colorful but in bad taste] What do you think he meant by this? Continue reading The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Stevens said, “This group of poems is not meant to be a collection of epigrams or ideas, but of sensations” (L 251). So don’t worry about trying to figure out what the blackbird “means.” It doesn’t have one meaning. Instead, ask yourself how each episode makes you feel. We look at life from many different perspectives. Continue reading Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Earthy Anecdote
Consider these questions as you work your way through this poem. What is the effect of this imaginary “firecat” on the clattering bucks? Why do they form a neatly geometric “circular line” when trying to avoid the firecat? Does this interaction remind you of any similar pattern in your own life? Continue reading Earthy Anecdote
The Legend of Hartford
The Legend of Hartford
by Eleanor O’Rourke Koenig
With overtones to what he said,
This man may he believed:
Go into the Cities and Towns, and there you
shall find many compassed about with the chains
of captivity, and every man bemoaning himself.
Thomas Hooker. Continue reading The Legend of Hartford
from Two on an Old Pathway
from Two on an Old Pathway
by Eleanor O’Rourke Koenig
(Hartford: Edwin Valentine Mitchell, 1929)
CONQUEST
She had a way
Of sweeping up a room
Then for a minute
Hanging on the broom.
Plumb in the middle—
There she would stand
Holding a broom
And the world in her hand.
from Herb Woman and Other Poems
from Herb Woman and Other Poems
by Eleanor C. Koenig
(New York: Harold Vinal, 1926)
RELEASE
OH, let me run with autumn winds
That pass through reeds and rushes
Let me shriek with evening gales
In ragged currant bushes.
Let me tear through aspen trees,
Roar on naked beaches,
Let me howl through bending oaks
In haunted woodland reaches.
I tell you, this, the grief I hold
Is no considerate sorrow;
This is the King of Pain who must
A fitting garment borrow. Continue reading from Herb Woman and Other Poems