December 2, 2004
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The Poem of Pure Reality
“We seek
The poem of pure reality, untouched
By trope or deviation,
straight to the word,
Straight to the transfixing object,
to the object
At the exactest point at which it is itself,
Transfixing by being purely what it is….”– Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)
“An Ordinary Evening in New Haven” IX,
from The Auroras of Autumn (1950)
(Collected Poems, pp. 465-489)I have added new material to Geometry of
the 4×4 Square, including links to a new
commentary on a paper by Burkard Polster.“It is a good light, then,
for those
That know the ultimate Plato,
Tranquillizing with this jewel
The torments of confusion.”– Wallace Stevens,
Collected Poetry and Prose,
page 21,
The Library of America, 1997
Comments (1)
I think it was something between this and the previous entry that I was actually trying to convey in my poem “The Right Words,” Steve.
Perhaps it is what all of us do who attempt to convey our sense of reality in words.