Harmonium

Great book. Great Poet. Get the Collected Poems, where you will find all of the poems in Harmonium, and more.That being said, many of Stevens's most famous (and best loved) poems are here in Harmonium: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, The Snow Man, The Emperor of Ice-Cream, Sunday Morning, Anecdote of the Jar, ... and more.Here is the eighth stanza of "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle":Like a dull scholar, I behold, in love,An ancient aspect touching a new mind.It comes, it blooms, it bears its fruit and dies.This trivial trope reveals a way of truth.Our bloom is gone. We are the fruit thereof.Two golden gourds distended on our vines,Into the autumn weather, splashed with frost,Distorted by hale fatness, turned grotesque.We hang like warty squashes, streaked and rayed,The laughing sky will see the two of usWashed into rinds by rotting winter rains.

I was generally luke warm as to the ambience of the poems. I did expect something different but that is my difficulty not the poet. As to what was there i find them sometimes forced or possibly too worked maybe they are a product of a great deal of erudition, but thats how it got me.

Great reading. Totally satisfied.

Handy reprint of this first volume from Stevens. I believe it just entered into the public domain in 2019.

This is an amazing volume if you're into modernist poetry!