Parts of a World: Wallace Stevens Remembered: An Oral Biography

Brazeau's 1977 reminiscence of Stevens through the comments of many of the people who had known, or just met him, either in his capacity as a man of business and a lawyer or a writer of poetry, is the essential introduction to the man, and, taken with the usual caveats, a fascinating point of entry into the poetry itself. Some of the entries are remarkably perspicacious - notably that of Jose Feo, the Cuban scholar, who underlines just how grounded in a sensual appreciation of the things of the world Stevens's language was. Stevens was many ways, and despite the ravings of that pompous windbag up there at Yale, our most "French" poet, in his grasp of quasi musical color notably, which is just what you'd expect from someone who not only was apt to recommend Ponge and Char as reading material but also contributed introductions to Valery's Dialogues, a poet whose temperament was not unlike his own - while others are written by blowhards tooting their own puny horns. None however are less than illuminating. Brazeau's method, and its effect, is akin to Welles's in Citizen Kane: the many refracted views may never offer a total grasp of the man - it was Welles's point of course that such a complete picture was ultimately impossible - but they come closer than any biography written and, I wager, to be written. Incidentally, if Stevens had a Rosebud, I didn't find it here. Why this book is not in permanent circulation escapes me. Essential.