1. Father Ted's sermon was right: worshiping at St. Mary's feels like home and my sense of that comfort and security and belonging was especially strong today.
2. I took my thick volume of Wallace Stevens' poetry off the shelf, read a handful of his poems, and marveled at the music of his poetry. The poems gave me a few good laughs, too. The older I get, the funnier his poetry is.
3. Just as I was reaching for the Brussel sprouts at Trader Joes', The Cars "Moving in Stereo" came over the sound system and it was summer, 1978, and I was back on Mountain View Lane in Spokane, arriving home from Eastern Washington University, where I took first year French with Madame Siefert, whom the Deke would study with ten years later, and I tried my best not to look like some goofy guy in his mid-fifties on the verge of dancing in the juice and sparkling water aisle.
5 comments:
Good to know that someone else appreciated Wallace Stevens. My volume of his Collected Poems is ofen down from the shelf and my reaction is similar to yours.He constantly surprises:
At the time of nougats, the peer yellow
Sighed in the evening that he lived
Without ideas in a land without ideas...
:) Thanks for making me smile!
Right before I read your post I was reading a book about why we read and what we read. All kinds of lists about books and reading end the book (compiled by English teachers on an online discussion.) One list was Ten Poets I Could Not Live Without. On the list was Wallace Stevens. I had to go enjoy some of his poems, then here is your post. In case you're interested, the others were Lucille Clifton, Jack Gilbert, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, Antonio Machado, Czeslaw Milosz, Pablo Neruda, Ranier Maria Rilke, William Stafford.
There are few others I would have added, but I like this list.
I'm familiar with all the poets listed except Antonio Machado. I'll have to look into his poems.
When Lucille Clifton came to LCC, I got to introduce her and then be part of a luncheon with her. She's powerful. My students loved her poetry.
RP: I have had a similar change of attitude as I grow older. The older I get the less I like the taste of a brewski.
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