While many poems have memorable lines or phrases, often cued by rhyme or meter, and Stevens’ poem does not, the poem itself as a whole is memorable, or at least the feeling it produces is. As you put it, the poem is “haunting.” And so we come back to it again and again (like a great pop song), to re-experience that haunting feeling or however it is that it makes us feel.
But the old stuff is hard to enjoy as poetry. Take your Iliad example. Is this great poetry? Well, the translator has gone with heroic couplets, so it’s more like ersatz English verse, almost parody, with its internal rhyme of “hecatombs” and “grateful fumes” (there’s a reason Pale Fire is in heroic couplets).
Even when it’s not translated, as with Shakespeare, it can be hard to enjoy as poetry, to find that haunting feeling. The words have changed in meaning, in sound, in context. And for every Sonnet 18, there’s 1-17.
I like plenty of poetry but I've never read it as systemically way I should, and I tend toward novel supremacy anyway. I hear you about philosophy (and things that are not philosophy but look a bit like it) being easier to write about. As far as lyric poetry I find that sometimes it's best-as with some art film-not to try to interpret it, just to accept the aesthetic impressions as they come, so I suppose I basically agree with you!
Who knows? I was in one poetry class where the professor said you can't really appreciate a poem without breaking it apart and analyzing it. Seemed iffy to me! But I suppose that's one way
I think modernist/postmodernist lyric poetry of the Stevens sort basically is philosophy by other means—or maybe modernist/postmodernist philosophy of the Nietzsche sort basically is lyric poetry by other means—since it's so conceptual and so not anything else, such as narrative. My essay from last year on Stevens, whom I don't really understand either, is one of my favorite of my own critical pieces, not to self-promote, but nobody read it, which is why it's not always promising to study or write about this material:
I like the post a lot! I don't know stevens that well, though I've read all his work. He's a hard poet to understand, but an easy one to enjoy? It's hard to believe his poetry was really so overtly philosophical, because it's rhythms feel very earthly, very immanent. I think I just so associate abstraction with bad poetry that it's odd to think one of my favorite poets indulged so freely in it!
Thanks! I agree, though I think he got more abstract or at least austere as he went. The early work, in Harmonium, is amazing even when I have no idea what he's talking about.
Great post; I want to read Stevens now. That poem made immediate sense to me; maybe because I grew up in a place where it’s winter half the year.
I agree that poetry feels baffling sometimes. My way in lately has been to read poetry, written in English, from the 16th-19th centuries. The rhymes are engaging, and it helps to not have that nagging worry one gets from reading works in translation that you’re trying to peer through frosted glass.
I recommended memorizing some poems! It’s so good for you, and comforting. You never know when you’ll be stuck on a mountainside or dungeon with no companion but your own mind! You should have a store of sonnets at the ready. It also helps with really understanding the poem IMO.
I went through a memorizing poets phase, mostly short Japanese Waka poems, but then I forgot them! It did really help though. Maybe I should break out the old flash cards and refresh my memory of them
Yes I find that poetry from before 1900 is so much simpler. It all makes overt sense. Like yes, you're looking at some old pottery. Yes, you're a traveler from an antique land looking at an old statue. Yes, she's a pretty girl walking in moonlight. Just a lot easier to hold onto!
My belief on this is that there are some disciplines that collapse inwards, that become guilds rather than speaking a language that connects to the culture-at-large. For different reasons, this can be a financially good option for those disciplines, but it’s almost always death to their ability to resonate widely. This happened to visual art somewhere around the ‘60 or ‘70s. It happened to really the entirety of academia. And I think it’s what happened to poetry as well. The usual cause, when it happens in art, is the advent of academization. The symptom is that the discipline communicates almost entirely in jargon. Sad to say that that’s been the fate of poetry in our time.
" Lyric poetry still falls more into the category of “things I ought to like” rather than “things I actually enjoy” ---- I don't really love classical lyrical poetry either. But have you read "The Prelude?" I think you'd enjoy it. There is something about blank verse that I find incredibly satisfying.
While many poems have memorable lines or phrases, often cued by rhyme or meter, and Stevens’ poem does not, the poem itself as a whole is memorable, or at least the feeling it produces is. As you put it, the poem is “haunting.” And so we come back to it again and again (like a great pop song), to re-experience that haunting feeling or however it is that it makes us feel.
But the old stuff is hard to enjoy as poetry. Take your Iliad example. Is this great poetry? Well, the translator has gone with heroic couplets, so it’s more like ersatz English verse, almost parody, with its internal rhyme of “hecatombs” and “grateful fumes” (there’s a reason Pale Fire is in heroic couplets).
Even when it’s not translated, as with Shakespeare, it can be hard to enjoy as poetry, to find that haunting feeling. The words have changed in meaning, in sound, in context. And for every Sonnet 18, there’s 1-17.
Fascinating! Very interesting set of questions.
I like plenty of poetry but I've never read it as systemically way I should, and I tend toward novel supremacy anyway. I hear you about philosophy (and things that are not philosophy but look a bit like it) being easier to write about. As far as lyric poetry I find that sometimes it's best-as with some art film-not to try to interpret it, just to accept the aesthetic impressions as they come, so I suppose I basically agree with you!
Who knows? I was in one poetry class where the professor said you can't really appreciate a poem without breaking it apart and analyzing it. Seemed iffy to me! But I suppose that's one way
I think modernist/postmodernist lyric poetry of the Stevens sort basically is philosophy by other means—or maybe modernist/postmodernist philosophy of the Nietzsche sort basically is lyric poetry by other means—since it's so conceptual and so not anything else, such as narrative. My essay from last year on Stevens, whom I don't really understand either, is one of my favorite of my own critical pieces, not to self-promote, but nobody read it, which is why it's not always promising to study or write about this material:
https://grandhotelabyss.substack.com/p/wallace-stevens-the-palm-at-the-end
(Narrative poetry in translation, like Homer, though, I tend to just treat like a novel.)
(And thanks for the mention, by the way!)
I like the post a lot! I don't know stevens that well, though I've read all his work. He's a hard poet to understand, but an easy one to enjoy? It's hard to believe his poetry was really so overtly philosophical, because it's rhythms feel very earthly, very immanent. I think I just so associate abstraction with bad poetry that it's odd to think one of my favorite poets indulged so freely in it!
Thanks! I agree, though I think he got more abstract or at least austere as he went. The early work, in Harmonium, is amazing even when I have no idea what he's talking about.
Great post; I want to read Stevens now. That poem made immediate sense to me; maybe because I grew up in a place where it’s winter half the year.
I agree that poetry feels baffling sometimes. My way in lately has been to read poetry, written in English, from the 16th-19th centuries. The rhymes are engaging, and it helps to not have that nagging worry one gets from reading works in translation that you’re trying to peer through frosted glass.
I recommended memorizing some poems! It’s so good for you, and comforting. You never know when you’ll be stuck on a mountainside or dungeon with no companion but your own mind! You should have a store of sonnets at the ready. It also helps with really understanding the poem IMO.
I went through a memorizing poets phase, mostly short Japanese Waka poems, but then I forgot them! It did really help though. Maybe I should break out the old flash cards and refresh my memory of them
Yes I find that poetry from before 1900 is so much simpler. It all makes overt sense. Like yes, you're looking at some old pottery. Yes, you're a traveler from an antique land looking at an old statue. Yes, she's a pretty girl walking in moonlight. Just a lot easier to hold onto!
My belief on this is that there are some disciplines that collapse inwards, that become guilds rather than speaking a language that connects to the culture-at-large. For different reasons, this can be a financially good option for those disciplines, but it’s almost always death to their ability to resonate widely. This happened to visual art somewhere around the ‘60 or ‘70s. It happened to really the entirety of academia. And I think it’s what happened to poetry as well. The usual cause, when it happens in art, is the advent of academization. The symptom is that the discipline communicates almost entirely in jargon. Sad to say that that’s been the fate of poetry in our time.
" Lyric poetry still falls more into the category of “things I ought to like” rather than “things I actually enjoy” ---- I don't really love classical lyrical poetry either. But have you read "The Prelude?" I think you'd enjoy it. There is something about blank verse that I find incredibly satisfying.
Wordsworth is one of my favorites!