Wallace Stevens, I believe, is the progenitor of contemporary verse. Maybe Mallarme, before Stevens. Mallarme’s poetry “evokes” meaning, rather than stating it. His “Prelude a l’apres-midi d-un faune,” probably his most well-known poem made even more immortal due to Debussy’s musical setting of it, is a model example of his style. Even in English translation, one can discern the flavor of his French evocations. I put Wallace Stevens in his lineage as Stevens, also, evokes and does not declare in his poetry.
Contemporaries of Stevens–Eliot and Frost–differ in their treatment of language. They make declarative sentences and they make points. While they both employ the modern “objective correlative,” the imagery they employ is to make a point, or argument. Their sentences connect subjects with objects. When Robert Frost writes, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” we know that Frost is using a New England stone wall to reflect on division between humans. Wallace Stevens criticized Frost for this, saying, “The trouble with you, Robert, is that you write about–subjects.” To which Frost replied, “The trouble with you, Wallace, is that you write about bric-a-brac.”
When one approaches a Stevens poem, one doesn’t ask what Stevens is writing about. He doesn’t write about subjects. He writes “about” language and word juxtapositions. Some say he writes about human subjectivity or the creative process. But I won’t even give him that. His word situations defy meaning. One enjoys the words themselves, not what he’s talking “about.” Contemporary verse follows the style of Stevens. He doesn’t write about subjects, but I’ll not say it’s bric-a-brac.
My complaint about Stevens and much contemporary poetry is I find it wanting in depth. Having fun with words is fun, as far as it goes, but ultimately one wants to come away from a poem with more than a bare feeling evoked by words. Nietzsche turned philosophy into literature. Though his literary works are as vapid as Stevens at his worst. Frost is a true embodiment of Emerson’s philosophical poet. Frost was a philosopher, maybe even a mystic (he said he was). And Frost made philosophy in verse. I fear that contemporary styles of poetry are but a fad. Everybody is writing in the school of Stevens, just like a generation ago everybody was writing sestinas because Pound reintroduced them into modern poetry. What will last into time we cannot say today. But we can say that for today, Stevens wins the day.
David Fekete 