Poggemeyer

Wallace Stevens


Wallace Stevens was born in 1879 and raised in Reading, Pennsylvania. He wanted to make sure he would never "make a petty struggle for existence" (Baym). So Stevens briefly tried a journalism career but left that to attend law school. He shortly after moved to Hartford, Connecticut with his wife and made a life-long home there. His first volume of poetry was published in 1923 called //Harmonium.// He had a surge in creativity in the 1930s where he became increasingly abstract and theoretical in his writings. His complete //Collected Poems(1954)// has been considered as one of the most important books in American poetry in the twentieth century(Baym).

The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter

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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.

Analysis:
"The Snow Man" is literally about the narrator's perspective of the surrounding area during the winter time. He notes the pine trees and other trees around the area with the snow all over their limbs. He then records how the wind blows through this area and notices how barren the surrounding land is. How lonely and how there is only the noise of some leaves rustling in the wind, but other than the leaves it is very quiet. In the last stanza he says that for any person that stops to listen in the snow he will hear nothing, mainly because there is nothing there to make noise and nothing around that could make any noise in this circumstance at the time. In other words, the place is very quiet and possibly uninteresting.

"The Snow Man" can also be interpreted in many different figurative ways. One way that I believe it can be interpreted is that the poem comes from the eyes of an actual snowman. I believe the poem is explaining how the snowman sees the world in this wintry state and that the snowman can only interpret the land for what it truly is. A human on the other hand cannot interpret its surrounding because it tries to bring about a more dream world and awesomeness state rather than the concrete of reality right in front of them. The snowman sees the "pine trees crusted with snow" and the "junipers shagged with ice" and states this directly without placing a comparison to other things. While as a person could not see the beauty of the land in this state but see it as "misery in the sound of the wind." Also the last stanza sums up how a listener cannot truly view the surrounding without a bias nature because nothing is truly there.

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.

Analysis:
What is actually occurring in the poem "The Emperor of Ice-Cream" is that many people are gathering to show respect to a deceased woman. Men and women are arriving all dressed up for the ceremony and bring flowers for the event also. There also seems to be a person serving ice-cream to all of the people who are in attendance. In the second stanza the poem switches to the deceased woman. It says that she is covered with a cloth that she had embroidered. It is covering all of her except her feet which are protruding out of the bottom.

At the beginning of the poem it speaks of a "roller of big cigars." I see this as God watching over the event and taking the woman away to her final resting place. Then the poem describes how the men and women enter into the building. The narrator calls the women wenches who are wearing their everyday dresses which gives the feeling of unimportance to the event and death. This men are also bringing in flowers in old newspapers which brings the sense of very little care about the deceased woman. Then there is a man handing out ice-cream which is usually associated with joyous occasions when people are happy, when in fact they are actually at a funeral. This brings a feeling that the people do not care much about the woman or are trying to ignore the fact that she is dead and want to only think about their lives in the presence. The second stanza then shows another instance of how the people did not care for the woman. She is not place in a casket but rather has a cloth that she embroidered slung over her. It is still revealing her cold dead feet thought. This could be a reminder to the people in attendance that she is the reason for their being there. Yet the poem ends in stating once again that "The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream" which brings back the fact that the woman is barely cared about and people are more there to celebrate and have ice-cream.

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.

Analysis:
The poem "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock" is literally about how houses at night are very uniform. The poem states that "houses are haunted by white gowns" which literally would mean that most people at this time are in their pajamas, or in this case their white gowns. No one would be wearing their elegant dresses or other every day clothing. People just have their basic white gowns without rings, lace, beads and other various items. The poem then says that people won't be dreaming dreams now. I believe that this is because it is literally too early in the night for people to be having dreams because most dreams occur in the early morning before people begin to wake up. The poem does reference thought that the only person having a dream at this time would be a drunken sailor.

I believe that this poem is talking about the imaginations of people in every day life. The haunted house filled with only white gowns represents a world with no imagination. A gown that lacks all the beautiful colors and interesting things that could go on a gown is like the world that is lacking the wonders of imagination. People won't be able to have wonderful dreams about "baboons and periwinkles" because they won't have the imagination to think have these things running around in their minds. The poem also references that the only person having dreams is a drunken sailor. I believe that this states that the only way a person with no imagination can have these exotic dreams is to have their brain influenced by alcohol or drugs.

Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill. The wilderness rose up to it, And sprawled around, no longer wild. The jar was round upon the ground And tall and of a port in air. It took dominion every where. The jar was gray and bare. It did not give of bird or bush, Like nothing else in Tennessee.

Analysis:
The poem "Anecdote of the Jar" is about a jar that the narrator has in Tennessee. The poem is describing the jar and how it is interacting with the surrounding wilderness. The jar was just sitting on the ground and the narrator is comparing it to the wilderness. It is an unusual object in the area because the environment did not know how to interact with it. The jar "did not give of bird or bush" which I take as no animals nor plants wanted to mess with the jar because it was an unusual object in the middle of their nature.

There are many different ways to interpret this poem. One way that I interpreted the poem is that the poem is describing how to produce a work of art. The jar I took as the paper or the basic template that a person uses to start the art work. As the artist progresses through the piece of art, the whole picture begins to take shape just like "the wilderness rose up to it and sprawled around, no longer wild." This is like the wilderness is being taken into the artist's eye and being put into the picture they are creating making it no longer "wild." So overall, I feel like the artist made a great work that depicts the wilderness all around in Tennessee but is so great that it is "like nothing else in Tennessee."

Robert Frost


Robert Frost was born in 1874 in California. He is most associated with New England because he spent most of his life here and wrote many of his poems about the area. He had numerous hardships in his life. These hardships helped shape him as a person but also as a writer. He is considered one of the best, or at least most well-known, poets in American history.

Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me~ Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Analysis:
"Mending Wall" is literally about two men walking along a wall that separates their farms from each others. They are fixing the holes in the wall that have occurred from the rocks falling out of it. Each man is walking on their farm's side of the wall and putting the rocks back in that have fallen out on their side. At one point the narrator's neighbor says that "Good fences make good neighbors." The narrator stumbles over this sentence for a while wondering what this actually means. He cannot seem to make sense of the sentence or why a fence would make a good neighbor. So the two men continue to fix the wall and the neighbor again makes the comment about fences.

I believe that the poem is talking about how there are many divisions between people in the real world that keep people from interacting with each other. In this poem, the mending wall is the barrier that is keeping the two men separate. It is showing that the two men lead very different lives. While the narrator is farming and growing apple orchards, the other man is living the life from what I can tell an ordinary person. These barriers can be harmful sometimes but can also be good. The neighbor in the poem makes the statement that "good fences make good neighbors." This means that some barriers in lives are good and keep you out of harms way or out of places that you don't want to get yourself in.