{"id":242,"date":"2025-09-22T18:36:53","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T18:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=242"},"modified":"2026-01-28T21:31:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T21:31:03","slug":"the-snow-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=242","title":{"rendered":"The Snow Man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What do you think it means to have \u201ca mind of winter\u201d and \u201cnot to think \/ Of any misery in the sound of the wind, \/ In the sound of a few leaves\u201d?\u00a0 What would the snow man be doing if he did think of \u201cmisery\u201d in those things?\u00a0 The poem is all one sentence; why do you think Stevens did that?\u00a0 Why do you think he repeats \u201cnothing\u201d three times in the final stanza?<\/em><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Snow Man<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong>by Wallace Stevens<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One must have a mind of winter<br \/>\nTo regard the frost and the boughs<br \/>\nOf the pine-trees crusted with snow;<\/p>\n<p>And have been cold a long time<br \/>\nTo behold the junipers shagged with ice,<br \/>\nThe spruces rough in the distant glitter<\/p>\n<p>Of the January sun; and not to think<br \/>\nOf any misery in the sound of the wind,<br \/>\nIn the sound of a few leaves,<\/p>\n<p>Which is the sound of the land<br \/>\nFull of the same wind<br \/>\nThat is blowing in the same bare place<\/p>\n<p>For the listener, who listens in the snow,<br \/>\nAnd, nothing himself, beholds<br \/>\nNothing that is not there and the nothing that is.<\/p>\n<pre>Wallace Stevens, \"The snow man\" from <i>Harmonium<\/i>. (New York:<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Public domain.)<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What do you think it means to have \u201ca mind of winter\u201d and \u201cnot to think \/ Of any misery in the sound of the wind, \/ In the sound of a few leaves\u201d?\u00a0 What would the snow man be doing if he did think of \u201cmisery\u201d in those things?\u00a0 The poem is all one &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/?p=242\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Snow Man<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[72,32,31,58],"class_list":["post-242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wallace-stevens","tag-metaphysics","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-social-commentary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hartfordlit.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}