Reading: poems of Wallace Stevens at LION

http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/cgi-test/offcampus.cgi?prod=Literature+Online

at search:

type in author Stevens, Wallace, then click on texts, then on Collected Poems

or type in title and author -- to get to assigned poems

poems to read:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

The Emperor of Ice Cream

The Idea of Order at Key West

Poetry Is a Destructive Force

The Poems of Our Climate

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction

The Aurora of Autumn

Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

Please print out copies of these so we can read in class. (You can also find these poems in a collected or selected Stevens in the library or at a bookstore.)

Plus: pick 10-15 other poems in the book to read

Listening: Stevens at http://www.factoryschool.org/content/poetry/

Describe the tone or mood, the form, and the content of two poems. What is the relation of the titles to the poems? In "The Idea of Order at Key West", which we will discuss in class: who is "she". What is Steven's sense of "reality"? Compare Stevens to two other poets you have read so far. Listen to the recording of Stevens. How does this compare to reading his work to yourself.