Key West

[stacilee12]

Though I have the unfair disadvantage of having read most of your blogs which were exceptionally insightful for me as I had absolutely no idea what was going on in this poem, what really made a difference was hearing Wallace Stevens recite it. Go to http://www.poets.org/ ( Read more... )

Comments

Order and Beauty

[mysteryofgod]

I like your analysis at the end your entry mentioning beauty. It ties in again to the overarching theme in the course of beauty and rigor. I think Wallace struggles for the rigor, the order in the poem. He accomplishes the beauty but seems to have trouble with the order. I think that he should have taken a leaf out of Eliot's book in the idea of order.

[nareesas]

Your idea that this entire poem is meant to relay a single moment is interesting; and the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It truly does seem like a moment of revelation.

This is a poem of sound. There is an absense of visual imagery concerning the sea (and the woman). It has everything to do with the sounds around the sea: the wind, the woman, the sound of the waves.

[spaczek_27]

his steady voice, lack of order and singular effect that you express in your blog is what i related to most about the poem. it's the imagism. I think it is his lack of explanation and the overwhelming amounts of images and emotions described that gives this poem added depth because it leaves the reader thinking and trying to piece together a puzzle that has been created through out the poem.

[anonymous]

I agree with Nareesa that this is a poem of sound. There are no direct depictions of the sea, nor of the woman. We hear, though, the "grinding water and the gasping wind" and feel the interaction of the sea's voice and the woman's song. Even when the sea is described, it is done in such a skillful metaphorical way that it speaks more of the sea-woman union than of the sea itself: "the ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea", "fluttering its empty sleeves", "mimic motion", "the meaningless plungings of water and the wind, theatrical distances...". As if the woman and the whole natural world are involved in a theatrical performance keeping our focus on the act of performing itself

[rositageorgieva]

Sorry about the anonymous comment. Great journal entry!