Why isn’t Wallace Stevens smarmy?
(Smarmy is what most poetry is
and what most poetry lovers
love about it.)
(Smarmy is what most poetry is
and what most poetry lovers
love about it.)
That theorem proposed between
one desperate clod and another
so that the green leaves came and covered the high rock
is not the kind of thing skeletons think about.
one desperate clod and another
so that the green leaves came and covered the high rock
is not the kind of thing skeletons think about.
And that fluent-mundo stuff
seems plenty smarmy after all—
fat girl, terrestrial,
my summer, my night.
A great poet can
earn smarmy-nessseems plenty smarmy after all—
fat girl, terrestrial,
my summer, my night.
by never forgetting
that the jar is gray and bare, even while
the slovenly wilderness surrounds it.
that the jar is gray and bare, even while
the slovenly wilderness surrounds it.
