By: Group B

Wallace Stevens Poems

Stevens was considered one of the most significant American poets of the 20th century.

Wallace Stevens was born on October 2, 1879 and died at the age of seventy two on August 2, 1955.

He attended Harvard for three years and then went on to get a degree in 1904 from the New York Law School. He then went on to practice law in New York for many years.

He got married to Elsie Kachel in 1909 and also had one child with her, a little girl.

About Wallace Stevens

Stevens became interested in writing while attending Harvard. His first book of poetry was published in 1923 called Harmonium.

He took a few years off from writing and began again in the 1930s.

Stevens also still wrote many great poems well into his sixties when most writers quit writing. Which turned out to be some of his best writings.

All this information was found at Poemhunter.com and English.edu.

Biography cont.

“The Idea of Order at Key West”

By: Wallace Stevens

Ashley SmithCourtesy of: http://www.atlastours.net/holyland/sea_of_galilee.jpg

Nature• “The water never

formed to mind or voice, like a body wholly body, fluttering its empty sleeves.”(Stevens 1451)

• “The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,” (Stevens 1451)Courtesy of:

http://www.freedesktopwallpapers4u.com/data/media/218/ocean-storm-01.jpg

DepressionSadness

“ A summer sound repeated in a summer without end and

sound alone.”(Stevens 1451) Courtesy of: http://i.ytimg.com/vi/414m7hPtmU4/0.jpg

THE SNOW MANBY: WALLACE STEVENS

By: Bryn Yarbrough

“The Snow Man”

A very depressing, sad, dark, and dreary poem.

“One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs,”

is a quote from poem meaning that in order for a person to have the mind of winter and understand how it feels to be sad and depressed, that they must have also been depressed or sad before.

“Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;” (Stevens, 1441).

In this poem, snow represents depression and sadness. “The Snow Man”, is a very sad and very cold man/person. The pine-trees are crusted with snow, is saying that the man is a pine-tree embedded with depression and sadness.

Courtesy of bbc.co.uk

*Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

*The Blackbird is used as a metaphor to describe the mindset of the author.

*Human nature is portrayed through the blackbird’s view.

*Everything is an illusion with a deeper meaning inside.

* Among twenty snowy mountains,The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.(Stevens,1448)

*The Emperor of Ice-CreamWritten by: Wallace StevensBy: Jacob Ghee

Courtesy of travelmarx.blogspot.com

*The underlining meaning

* The Underlining Meaning

The Emperor of Ice-Cream is not an actual person, but something that we try to achieve to be like but fail in our attempts.

* Trying to live a life of happiness and pursuing it without work will end up in only death.

* No matter how hard you try to live a worry free life, bad things will always happen. The only Emperor of happiness is one we can never be.

* Even those who attempt to fill their life with material things are only numbing the depression.

* Courtesy of: mymedicatedlife.blogspot.com

*Authors use of themes

*A girl who tries to fill her life with friends and love but still feeling empty

*She then attempts to fill her life with material things but still feels depressed and sad

*She becomes so depressed because she spends her entire life pursuing happiness that she dies in the end cold and alone

Courtesy of: getrichslowly.com

Works cited

• Loeffelholz, Mary. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vol. D. New York: WW Norton & Company, 2007. 1442. Print.

Anecdote of the JarBy Wallace Stevens

•“I placed a jar in Tennessee, And round it was, upon a hill. It made the slovenly wilderness Surround that hill.” (Stevens 1-4)

Picture courtesy of Flickr.com

My Interpretation

•Stevens is talking about industrial life.

•The jar is a representation of industries and the wilderness of societies, unions.

END