Wallace Stevens and Robert Bly

"The poet, Stevens emphasizes, is the servant of reality. The earlier romantics elevated imagination to a noble and central role in poetics; but for Stevens it is the means by which the poet maintains composure in the face of the bright light, the enormous pressure, of the real. The imagination functions as a sense of humor might function to keep a servant from despair. By mediating between reality and desire, the imagination makes poetry possible, but it also prevents the light of the sun from simplifying or occluding reality. The servant, not the master, understands the dichotomy of "Lights masculine and lights feminine," and understands that the purple that envelops Hartford is the light of the sun translated (as through a prism) by his imagination to represent his desire for the feminine, while the "heroic attitudes" embody his vision of the masculine."

 Wallace Stevens in Connecticut, by William Doreski. Questiaschool.com. Oct. 2009

I may not be a perfect poet, but I am the perfect servant. 

It was my good fortune to have found a copy of Robert Bly's The Man in the Black Coat Turns at a used book store a few months ago. The merchant had commented that the book had only just come in and been shelved that morning.  I decided to purchase the book when I opened to this poem:

Snowbanks North of the House

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six

            feet from the house...

Thoughts that go so far.

The boy gets out of high school and reads no more 

           books;

the son stops calling home.

The mother puts down her rolling pin and bakes no 

           more bread.

And the wife looks at her husband one night at a

           party, and loves him no more.

The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls

           leaving the church.

It will not come closer--

the one inside moves back, and the hands touch

           nothing, and are safe.

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the 

           room where the coffin stands,

He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on

           through the unattached heavens alone. 

The toe of the shoe pivots

in the dust...

And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back

              down the hill.

No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,

               and did not climb the hill.        

I wonder of this is where the Little River Band found inspiration for their song "Man in Black"? Great song; great poem.

from Going On

These are the days of horrible headlines,
Bomb Blast Atrocity, Leak From Reactor,
Soccer Fans Run Amok, Middle East Blood Bath,
PC Knocks Prisoner's Eye Out In Charge Room.
Outside, the newsvendors ululate. Inside,
lovers seek refuge in succulent plump flesh,
booze themselves innocent of the whole shit-works.
Why has the gentleman fallen face-forward
into his buttered asparagus, Garcon?
He and his girlfriend have already drunk two
bottles of Bollinger and they were half-tight
when they arrived at the pace half-an-hour since.
Waiters man-handle the gentleman upright,
aim him (with smirks at the lady) towards his
quails (which he misses and slumps in the gravy-
baying, the while, for "Encore du Savigny")
He is supplied with the beaune, which he noses,
quafs deeply, relishes...sinks to the gingham
where he reposes susurrantly. There is
'63 Sandeman fetched to revive him.
Chin on the Pont L'Eveque, elbow in ash-tray,
as from the Book of the Dead, he produces
incomprehensible hieroglyphics, bidding
Access surrender the price of his coma
unto the restaurateur, kindly and patient.
These are the days of the National Health Cuts,
days of the end of innocent liver;
they have to pay for it privately, who would seek anesthetic.


Peter Reading

Possibly Maybe - Bjork