Headpiece Filled With Straw

Stevens

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

By Wallace Stevens

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

There's always time for Uncle Wally!

Link: [minstrels] The Emperor of Ice-Cream -- Wallace Stevens.

The Snow Man

By Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

We got a good five inches of snow here last night in Montana, so this poem seems appropriate for today. I'm due for something from Uncle Wally in here anyway.

There was a nice reading of this today on the NPR most-emailed podcast, with some analysis of the use of conjunctions and balance in the poem. Stevens often bewilders me, but I can't deny the power of his use of language, and for honing in on things that often go unnamed.

Link: NPR : Wallace Stevens: 'The Snow Man'.

Wallace Stevens: 'The Snow Man'

  by Jay Keyser
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 Wallace Stevens won the Pulitzer Prize for his book Collected Poems in 1955. Corbis

All Things Considered, November 29, 2005 · The American poet Wallace Stevens died 50 years ago this year. Commentator Jay Keyser says Stevens wrote the best short poem in the English language, "The Snow Man." Stevens marries what the poem is about with the way that it is built.

               

Found this copy of it at Wandering Minstrels, below, where you will also find more discussion of the poem.

Link: [minstrels] The Snow Man -- Wallace Stevens.