My Photo
Name:
Location: United States

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Kevin Hart and Wallace Stevens

I came across an interview in the Journal of Philosophy and Scripture - “Paul & the Reduction” - with poet and philosopher/theologian Kevin Hart. I read it and sort of understood some of it but mostly it was over my head. I noticed though that Hart mentioned a poet he liked ... Wallace Stevens ... and I looked him up. He was an interesting guy - a lawyer, a buddy of George Santayana, William Carlos Williams, and E. E. Cummings, and a deathbed Catholic convert. Here is one of his poems ...

The High-Toned Old Christian Woman

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.


1 Comments:

Blogger cowboyangel said...

Stevens is one of the biggies of the 20th Century, for sure.

One of my faves:

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

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.

11:21 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home