Poem for the Day: Anecdote of the Jar
by Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
I took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
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Love this poem, and the collected poetry of Stevens. His contemporary, William Carlos Williams, kept a day job as New Jersey physician (Stevens was a corporate attorney in Connecticut). This poem below is a nice companion piece to the jar in Tennessee:
ReplyDeleteThe Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams
--------------------------------
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
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