The poem
The poem of the mind in the act of finding What will suffice. It has not always had To find: the scene was set; it repeated what Was in the script. Then the theatre was changed To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place. It has to face the men of the time and to meet The women of the time. It has to think about war And it has to find what will suffice. It has To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage, And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and With meditation, speak words that in the ear, In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat, Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound Of which, an invisible audience listens, Not to the play, but to itself, expressed In an emotion as of two people, as of two Emotions becoming one. The actor is A metaphysician in the dark, twanging An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend, Beyond which it has no will to rise. It must Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.
Having just studied Whitman, I am totally taken by Stevens, because he has written a piece which completely changes what it means to read and write poetry. He honors the inividual mind, and links the poet and the reader as comrades, celebrating the process of searching for meaning, moreso than the process of delivering answers. He stresses "the act of finding....what will suffice....it has to find what will suffice...it must be the finding of satisfaction". I totally love the idea of "sudden rightnesses", the ephiphany which occurs when one becomes one with the poet. I'm very new at interpreting poetry, but this piece really has set me on an exciting path.
What strikes me in that poem is the idea mentioned by Alan- 'finding what will suffice'.-To me it means that writing poetry is striving towards perfection, one has to try many options before choosing the ultimate one. Therefore I would disagree here with Alan on the epiphany motif. Stevens writes that a poem must be an 'act of the mind' and that it must be heard in the 'ear of the mind'. To me it suggests a careful…
Read the whole commentWhat strikes me in that poem is the idea mentioned by Alan- 'finding what will suffice'.-To me it means that writing poetry is striving towards perfection, one has to try many options before choosing the ultimate one. Therefore I would disagree here with Alan on the epiphany motif. Stevens writes that a poem must be an 'act of the mind' and that it must be heard in the 'ear of the mind'. To me it suggests a careful precision of the form and content, gradual evolving of an idea rather than a sudden feat. Thus I don't suppose it is emotion that Stevens believes to be the major tool, mode of wiriting, but I think that he validates it as a basis, fundament and inspiration, however, contolled by a modern poet's skill.
"what will suffice..." To me this is one of the profound things of our poetry. However, Johann Sebastian Bach possibly had the same idea in his mind, when he said: "Never use two violins when one will suffice."
I really like that comment tying Whitman to Stevens, as I never really thought of it before. Yes both are creating a stage and embracing the reader in a present-tense poetry, albeit maybe on different stages with different acting methods. Whitman reaches out in Song of Myself, and Stevens reaches out in many poems, including here, but other times more obliquely, as in my favorite, "The Snow Man." Yes the "act of finding" seems more important than "to find" in this poem. The poem must be "wholly / containing the mind," and this itself might be what suffices: that sense of transport, communication, knowledge, and rapture.