This week marks the anniversary of the death of poet Wallace Stevens in 1955 …
We honor the occasion with five of our favorite Wallace Stevens poems from his debut collection HARMONIUM (originally published 1923) …
The Anecdote of
Men by The Thousands
Found in the book
HARMONIUM
(Available as FREE PDF Ebook)
The soul, he said, is composed
Of the external world.
There are men of the East, he said,
Who are the East.
There are men of a province
Who are that province.
There are men of a valley
Who are that valley.
There are men whose words
Are as natural sounds
Of their places
As the cackle of toucans
In the place of toucans.
The mandoline is the instrument
Of a place.
Are there mandolines of western mountains?
Are there mandolines of northern moonlight?
The dress of a woman of Lhassa,
In its place,
Is an invisible element of that place
Made visible.
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