Robin, I just read this online prior to opening this post and was going to post it but you beat me to it. Wonderful introduction to Wallace Stevens and the mention of the poem you posted.
"George Santayana is known for the saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" ________________________________ From: Robin Carlsen <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, November 9, 2012 7:08 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: Robin you have put Ann in a very difficult position Wallace Stevens The following introduction has been generously provided by THT Featured Poet T. Merrill. I guess one impression I have of Wallace Stevens, whose uniqueness as a poet is undeniable, is an eternal brand-newness. No matter how much I re-read him, quite a bit remains external, and there's much in him I suspect I'll never be able to go back to in the way one returns to fond and familiar things. But if a fair fraction of his writing has an eye-blurring elusiveness that can easily be used to suppress consciousness—I in fact owe him quite a debt for all the times he has helped me get to sleep—that is by no means the whole—nor is it the main—story, nor is it at all intended as a slight to this remarkable poet. The fact remains that I do go back to him, time and again enticed by a strangeness that is still compelling, and driven by a desire to get to know him better. Certainly on ultimate themes, such as death and the human predicament, he writes with considerable power and feeling—and starkly and without illusion—and these are some of his poetry's recurrent preoccupations. His morbid side was strong, he had an acute tragic sensibility, and in quite a few of his poems the wail breaches and is exquisitely expressed, and there is an immense sense of desolation. With regard to some pieces of his in which the themes are not as palpable, I flatter myself that I've now and then been able to read his mind, as it were, or get a lucky glimpse of a sort of inside joke that was lurking behind the smokescreen or symbolic curtain. A sort of jolly irreverence comes through in much of his writing—a sort of nose-thumbing indifference to the expected, and to all arguments against his seeing and describing things in his own proudly peculiar way. But if he leaned toward a style that sometimes seems to revel in its independence, and in its obliqueness; and if he left us his share of indomitable text; it is still possible to love those we don't always understand—and there is more than enough sense and realism in Stevens to nourish a mind hungry for a vision without blinders. So despite any obstacles, I've collected a number of fond reminiscences of this complex and extraordinary writer, several of which are shared below, and many of which appeal to me very much. But I think it would be fair to say that popularity wasn't Stevens' objective. I personally see him as part of that ongoing tradition of groundbreaking literary endeavor that has been carried on over the past century and more by several of his alma mater's bright lights. Among other Harvard-trained writers of his own era who took off into unexplored poetic territory were Eliot, cummings, Gertrude Stein certainly—and I guess Harvard's most recent contender for the Pioneer Award in poetry must be John Ashbery. Still, as I remember another famous Harvardian putting it, "The trouble with most new things is that they are incapable of becoming old"; and that observation—which I've hopefully remembered somewhat accurately—of George Santayana, whom Stevens had in mind when he wrote his valediction and poetic tribute "To An Old Philosopher in Rome," I think hits the nail right on the head, and seems to express my own reaction, at this stage in my studies anyway, to a fair portion of the Stevens corpus. But I feel amply compensated for my efforts by the rest of that corpus. If Stevens can be a very difficult poet, and if a chunk of his writing is destined to remain brand new, by which I guess I mean no more familiar on the tenth reading than it was on the first (and I mean "no more familiar" in the most literal of ways: "Have I ever seen these words before?"—but who knows, this may mean nothing more than that the reader's memory is becoming a sieve), one thing that can never be taken away from Stevens is his high command of language. I hear clear echoes in some of his poems of Shakespeare, Eliot, Pound, even Shelley, all of whose writings he obviously knew quite well, and some of whose more famous themes are revisited, and handsomely recast in his own poetry's more searching and solemn passages. And unlike the work of some moderns who claim descent from his poetic lineage, Stevens' poems bear all the evidence of his own testimony in one of them: "tuned and tuned and tuned," as they would have to have been to have their syntactic complexity and such an impressively smooth-working integration of all their unusual parts. And it is his masterly manipulation and control of language that for me at least, probably accounts as much as anything for his continuing allure, and even the promise of future rewards. As a final note, I should add that a number of his poems are truly amusing. Caprice was often his modus operandi, and he had quite a flair for it, and a fine wit and wonderful sense of humor. The final line of "The Old Lutheran Bells At Home" all by itself is worth the price of admission to his comedy theatre. But there are many priceless lines. And his titles as well are quite often a hoot. That he won some of the more coveted prizes—the Bollingen, the Pulitzer—despite notoriously ignoring the literary world of his day, is no surprise considering his one-of-a-kindness and linguistic virtuosity, and I have no doubt at all they were well deserved. Like cummings, Eliot, Hopkins and other novelistic and remarkably original poets, he has no poetic offspring that really resemble him much. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, one may have to flatter such writers in less sincere ways—but less likely by choice than by necessity. --- In [email protected], "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@...> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], "Robin Carlsen" <maskedzebra@> wrote: > > > > http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/031494_harp_01_ITH.au > > TO AN OLD PHILOSOPHER IN ROME > > On the threshold of heaven, the figures in the street > Become the figures of heaven, the majestic movement > Of men growing small in the distances of space, > Singing, with smaller and still smaller sound, > Unintelligible absolution and an end - > > The threshold, Rome, and that more merciful Rome > Beyond, the two alike in the make of the mind. > It is as if in a human dignity > Two parallels become one, a perspective, of which > Men are part both in the inch and in the mile. > > How easily the blown banners change to wings… > Things dark on the horizons of perception > Become accompaniments of fortune, but > Of the fortune of the spirit, beyond the eye, > Not of its sphere, and yet not far beyond, > > The human end in the spirit's greatest reach, > The extreme of the known in the presence of the extreme > Of the unknown. The newsboys' muttering > Becomes another murmuring; the smell > Of medicine, a fragrantness not to be spoiled… > > The bed, the books, the chair, the moving nuns, > The candle as it evades the sight, these are > The sources of happiness in the shape of Rome, > A shape within the ancient circles of shapes, > And these beneath the shadow of a shape > > In a confusion on bed and books, a portent > On the chair, a moving transparence on the nuns, > A light on the candle tearing against the wick > To join a hovering excellence, to escape > From fire and be part only of that which > > Fire is the symbol: the celestial possible. > Speak to your pillow as if it was yourself. > Be orator but with an accurate tongue > And without eloquence, O, half-asleep, > Of the pity that is the memorial of this room, > > So that we feel, in this illumined large, > The veritable small, so that each of us > Beholds himself in you, and hears his voice > In yours, master and commiserable man, > Intent on your particles of nether-do, > > Your dozing in the depths of wakefulness, > In the warmth of your bed, at the edge of your chair, alive > Yet living in two worlds, impenitent > As to one, and, as to one, most penitent, > Impatient for the grandeur that you need > > In so much misery; and yet finding it > Only in misery, the afflatus of ruin, > Profound poetry of the poor and of the dead, > As in the last drop of the deepest blood, > As it falls from the heart and lies there to be seen, > > Even as the blood of an empire, it might be, > For a citizen of heaven though still of Rome. > It is poverty's speech that seeks us out the most. > It is older than the oldest speech of Rome. > This is the tragic accent of the scene. > > And you – it is you that speak it, without speech, > The loftiest syllable among loftiest things, > The one invulnerable man among > Crude captains, the naked majesty, if you like, > Of bird-nest arches and of rain-stained-vaults. > > The sounds drift in. The buildings are remembered. > The life of the city never lets go, nor do you > Ever want it to. It is part of the life in your room. > Its domes are the architecture of your bed. > The bells keep on repeating solemn names > > In choruses and choirs of choruses, > Unwilling that mercy should be a mystery > Of silence, that any solitude of sense > Should give you more than their peculiar chords > And reverbations clinging to whisper still. > > It is a kind of total grandeur at the end, > With every visible thing enlarged and yet > No more than a bed, a chair and moving nuns, > The immensest theatre, and pillared porch, > The book and candle in your ambered room, > > Total grandeur of a total edifice, > Chosen by an inquisitor of structures > For himself. He stops upon this threshold, > As if the design of all his words takes form > And frame from thinking and is realized. > > –Wallace Stevens > > > --- In [email protected], "emptybill" <emptybill@> wrote: > > > > > > My note was to someone who represents themselves as a Christian, > > > not to you. Apparently you believe your "explanation" is enough to > > > clarify Robin's representations. > > > > > > While these may be comfort to his former "students" this is not > > > relevant to his misdeeds. Helping others without regard to himself > > > would be the way of that very Lord whom he proclaims for himself. > > > > > > It doesn't matter what you or I think. > > > It is for Robin to assay and give to others > > > the grace he has received. > > > > > > Confession is the return to the gift of Baptism and an > > > acknowledgement that what we are is the gift to > > > "be at all" ... without a claim of being justified. > > > > > > Robin already knows this. It is up to him to live it ... > > > which indeed he has the grace to do. > > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <authfriend@> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In [email protected], "emptybill" emptybill@ wrote: > > > > <snip> > > > > > You do not have the slightest concept or remorse for your delusive > > > > > grandiosity. > > > > > > > > "I did terrible things, which I regret. I have spent twenty-five > > > > and a half years straightening out myself--I had more problems-- > > > > more 'demons'--than any person that I confronted. The really > > > > troubled person was myself--and no one else's problems compared, > > > > in magnitude to my own.... > > > > > > > > "I was infinitely deceived, out-of-my-mind (in some fundamental > > > > way), and I unnecessarily and unjustifiably hurt and violated > > > > many innocent human beings (most all of whom I loved deeply), > > > > and therefore I fully deserved to go through a purgatory of > > > > extreme agony as a consequence of my naivete, blindness, > > > > fanaticism, and cosmic egotism. I was wrong, and what I did was > > > > wrong." > > > > > > > > --Robin Carlsen, about 11 hours ago > > > > > > > > > >
