Stevens: Poems: Selected by Helen Vendler

The most well- known of Stevens' literary- critics Helen Vendler put this selection of his poetry together. It is outstanding. Stevens is the poet of musical questioning, of a great and vibrant sensuality , of a deep searching for and making of beauty in words. His aesthetic reflective mind plays over and over again with sounds he makes us hear in new ways.. And he leads us see things in different ways , seeing them and hearing them and feeling them in some mysterious blend his magical language reorders. The most famous of the poems from 'Sunday Morning' to ' Thirteen ways of looking at a Blackbird' are included in this highly recommended collection.

One of the best poets of the twentieth century was Wallace Stevens, with his richly atmospheric writing and deep themes about religion, nature and the imagination. The "Everyman's Library" brings together many of his best poems, Several of the poems included are well known ones that Stevens wrote, such as the atmospheric "Sunday Morning," the vivid "Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird," the whimsical and colorful "Emperor of Ice Cream" and a stretch of the epic "Man With the Blue Guitar." However, lesser-known works by Stevens are also included, such as "Le Monacle De Mon Oncle" (""Mother of heaven, regina of the clouds,/O sceptre of the sun, crown of the moon"), "Asides on the Oboe" and "Postcard From the Volcano." These tend to be as good, if not even better, than Stevens' better-known works. The Everyman's Collection doesn't have everything Stevens did, but it does include bits here and there, from this book and that book, including posthumous publications. As a result, it's a good way to introduce oneself to Stevens' brand of lush, verbose poetry. This book also does a good job of showing the various kinds of poetry that Stevens wrote -- most are infused with color, sounds and smells, some with darkness, some with a rich overtone, some very brief like the bare "Anecdote of the Jar." One thing that Stevens' writing always has is beauty -- even in the weird ones. With only a few words he can evoke images that are exquisite, soothing, even eerie ("My candle burned alone in an immense valley"). He also infuses his poetry with intense colors and plenty of nature references, birds and trees, snow and rain and wind. Wallace Stevens' exquisite writing is some of the best the twentieth century had to offer, and the Everyman's Library collection is an excellent way to get into his work.

Helen Vendler is the author of one terrific and one very good book on Stevens (the terrific one is _Words Chosen Out of Desire_, which ought to be the first piece of criticism any new reader of Stevens looks into--along with Milton Bate's _Wallace Stevens: the Mythology of the Self_, I think it's called). She's also one of the best critics of twentieth-century and current poetry....she's done an amazing job here. I love this edition--so compact, the typeface is beautiful, and most of my favorite Stevens is here. Vendler makes odd and fascinating choices of some neglected shorter lyrics and many of these have quickly become my favorites ("Mozart, 1935," and "Burghers of Petty Death," for example). You get all of the _Auroras of Autumn_ and the _Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction_, and substantial parts of _The Man with the Blue Guitar_ and _An Ordinary Evening in new Haven_. Of course I have a minor complaint or two--(where's The Owl in the Sarcophagus?) But they're quite minor. I'm assigning this to a class in the spring--it's a lot less intimidating than the Collected Poems. Buy this one first! And even if you own the collected, as I do, it's worth getting this one too...it makes the reading of these amazing poems quite irresistible!