to the one of fictive music, by wallace stevens

sister and mother and diviner love,
and of the sisterhood of the living dead
most near, most clear, and of the clearest bloom,
and of the fragrant mothers the most dear
and queen, and of diviner love the day
and flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown
its venom of renown, and on your head
no crown is simpler than the simple hair.

now, of the music summoned by the birth
that separates us from the wind and sea,
yet leaves us in them, until earth becomes,
by being so much of the things we are,
gross effigy and simulacrum, none
gives motion to perfection more serene
than yours, out of our imperfections wrought,
most rare, or ever of more kindred air
in the laborious weaving that you wear.

for so retentive of themselves are men
that music is intensest which proclaims
the near, the clear, and vaunts the clearest bloom,
and of all vigils musing the obscure,
that apprehends the  most which sees and names,
as in your name, an image that is sure,
among the arrant spices of the sun,
o bough and bush and scented vine, in whom
we give ourselves our likest issuance.

yet not too like, yet not so like to be
too near, too clear, saving a little to endow
our feigning with the strange unlike, whence springs
the difference that heavenly pity brings.
for this, musician, in your girdle fixed
bear other perfumes.  on your pale head wear
a band entwining, set with fatal stones.
unreal, give back to us what once you gave:
the imagination that we spurned and crave.

(from Stevens, Collected Poetry & Prose, pp. 70-71)

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This is apparently one of Stevens' signature pieces.  From it Ronald Sukenik took the title of his book "Musing the Obscure."  And didn't someone else take, "Feigning with the Strange Unlike?"  I like this poem because I find echoes of Stevens' earlier, more 'classical' poetry blended with many of the notes of his own unique fugue.

I like that he sees poetry as 'out of our imperfections wrought,' and that it isn't 'renown' that is the motivation of the poet, rather 'on your head/no crown is simpler than the simple hair.'  This poem, like most of Stevens' poems, bears repeated reading.

I will attempt to read what some of the scholars have had to say about this poem, and will add to the post over the next couple of days.

Comments

[Lori Witzel]

I have to say, I keep reading and re-reading this and it's just harder access for me than some of his other work. Something about the language that's keeping it a little fenced -- like a beautiful rose briar protecting something more delicate at the center.

[kasturi]

nicely said, lori. i recall carl jung's dictum that we must always protect our 'center': there is some secret core that must be kept hidden from view.

my reading assumes he writes of 'Poetry,' personified, and in that antique style in which he wrote his earliest poems, the ones published at harvard. i always think he's writing on more than one level, and one wonders of whom he is thinking when he goes on about Poetry as mother, sister, queen. Is it Elsie's hair he's thinking of? His love and use of 'the earth' ran counter to the thinking of the religious community of his forbears, and that kind of thinking runs deep. His 'era' threw it off, and this was his way: to love the poetic potential of the Earth combined with the spiritual power of the Imagination.

[cheap soft cialis]

what can I say? music is my life and i can't live without it ...

[Kasturi Karen Mattern]

i had no idea that Stevens first wrote for the Theosophical Society's Journal 'The Dial.' This makes so much sense to me!

[Kasturi Mattern]

I love WS's poems and the many interpretations people bring to them. That's why I started this blog.

[Kasturi Mattern]

I love WS's poetry even when I don't understand it - it's so musical and full of beautiful imagery. The ancients wrote all kinds of odes and hymns and elegies and so on and that's what this poem seems like to me. It just has the feel of some sort of 'ode.'

[Kasturi Mattern]

I wonder if this poem might be about WS's wife? After all, the opposite is a kind of 'strange unlike' - like and yet unlike, no? She was noted for her beautiful hair (she is the woman in profile on the US dime) and yet she shunned celebrity. She wasn't interest in that at all.