Reviews

The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens by Wallace Stevens

adambwriter's review against another edition

5.0

Holy smokes. I’m going to have to read this again. And much more slowly.

javorstein's review

4.0

lots of pretty words, couldn't tell what the fuck he was saying ever. probably just not good enough at reading poetry yet, but like man get off thesaurus. probably historically important for american poetry but i really didn't get it. nonetheless still good writing, just not my type of poetry

steviec's review

5.0

I absolutely did not think I was gonna like this book very much. Wallace Stevens was an insurance man and a bigshot executive as a day job. Wallace Stevens was a conservative and kind of a dick, he picked fights with Robert Frost and Hemingway (I mean I'll give him Hemingway). This reputation preceded my reading of these poems and that reputation did not do these poems justice.

I got this book to read Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction. I imagine a lot of people read that one in college but I did not and it blew me away. But Wallace Stevens surprised me with his positivity. He surprised me with so many lines that I could never list here, but I will list just a few anyway because this is my review and I can.

"There is not nothing, no, no, never nothing,
Like the clashed edges of two words that kill."

"I have finished my combat with the sun;
And my body, the old animal,
Knows nothing more."

"... Perhaps
The truth depends on a walk around a lake"

alismcg's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

4.0