DA POSSIBILIDADE POÉTICA

"O poema da mente no acto de encontrar
Quanto baste. Nem sempre teve
Que encontrar:a cena estava montada, repetia o que
Estava no guião.
Então o teatro foi mudado
Para outra coisa. Seu passado era uma lembrança.
Ele tem que estar vivo,que aprender o discurso do sítio.
Tem que enfrentar os homens do tempo e encontrar-se com
As mulheres do tempo. Tem que pensar sobre a guerra
E tem que encontrar quanto baste. Tem
Que construir um novo palco. Tem que estar nesse palco
E,como um actor insaciável, vagarosamente e
Com meditação, dizer palavras que ao ouvido,
Ao mais delicado ouvido da mente, repitam,
Exactamente, o que ele quer ouvir, ao som
Das quais, uma audiência invisível escuta,
Não a peça, mas a si mesma, expressa
Numa emoção como de duas pessoas,como de duas
Emoções a tornarem-se uma. O actor é
Um metafísico no escuro,tangendo
Um instrumento, tangendo uma corda de metal que dá
Sons a passarem por súbitas exactidões,na totalidade
A conter a mente, abaixo da qual não pode descer,
Além da qual não quer elevar-se.
Deve
Ser o encontrar uma satisfação, e pode
Ser de um homem patinando, uma mulher dançando,
uma mulher
Penteando-se. O poema do acto da mente."

-"Ficção Suprema"
- Wallace Stevens

The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
                   It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.
 
Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.


Wallace Stevens

William Carlos Williams reviews Wallace Stevens

«The New Republic has posted a review, from 1937, of Wallace Stevens’ The Man with the Blue Guitar and Other Poems, written by William Carlos Williams. Williams begins by praising Stevens’ craft but questioning his politics:

The story is that Stevens has turned of late definitely to the left. I should say not, from anything in this book. He’s merely older and as an artist infinitely more accomplished. Passion he has, too often muted, but not flagrantly for the underdog. No use looking for Stevens there—without qualifications.

And continues on to critique the thoughtfulness of Stevens’ quasi-philosophical verse, which Williams sees as dulling the flashes of brilliance in the poems:

Five beats to the line here, and that’s where the trouble is let in. These five beats have a strange effect on a modern poet; they make him think he wants to think. Stevens is no exception. The result is turgidity, dullness and a language, God knows what it is! certainly nothing anybody alive today could ever recognize—lit by flashes, of course, in this case; for whatever else he may be Stevens is always a distinguished artist. The language is constrained by the meter instead of there being—an impossible peak it may be—a meter discovering itself in the language. We are still searching. Much more might be said were there space for it.»

         in Poetry Foundation