The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain



There it was, word for word,
The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,
Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed
A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,
Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,
Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness
Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,
Recognize his unique and solitary home.



Wallace Stevens



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Critically regarded as one of the most significant American poets of the 20th century. Stevens largely ignored the literary world and he did not receive widespread recognition until the publication of his COLLECTED POEMS (1954). In his work Stevens explored inside a profound philosophical framework the dualism between concrete reality and the human imagination. For most of his adult life, Stevens pursued contrasting careers as a insurance executive and a poet. "The poem must resist the intelligence / Almost successfully," Stevens wrote in 1949 in 'Man Carrying Thing.'

Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, as the son of Garrett Barcalow Stevens, a prosperous country lawyer. His mother's family, the Zellers, was of Dutch origin; she taught at school. Stevens attended the Reading Boys' High School, and enrolled in 1893 at Harvard College. During this period Stevens began to write for the Harvand Advocate, Trend, and Harriet Monroe's magazine Poetry. In his writing aspirations he was encouraged among others by George Santayana. Stevens's first play, THREE TRAVELLERS WATCH A SUNRISE, won that magazine's prize for verse drama in 1916. It was produced in the following year at New York's Provincetown Playhouse.

After leaving Harvard without degree in 1900, Stevens worked as a reporter for the New York Tribune. He then entered New York Law School, graduated in 1903, and was admitted to the bar next year.

Stevens worked as an attorney in several firms and in 1908 secured a position with the American Bonding Company. He married Elsie Kachel Moll, a shopgirl, from his home town; their daughter, Holly, was born in 1924. She later editer her father's letters. The marriage was unhappy but stable. Elsie was fanatical in her housekeeping and Stevens idealized and rejected her presence. Stevens did not like visitors at home - he kept distance to people but also gained fame as a serious joker. On the other hand, Stevens spent time with avant-garde writers and artist around his Harvard classmate and art collector Walter Arensberg.





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