Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and he spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance company in Hartford, Connecticut. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.
Some of his best-known poems include "Valley Candle", "Anecdote of the Jar", "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock", "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", "The Snow Man", and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."
Read more about Wallace Stevens: Poetry
Famous quotes by wallace stevens:
“The body is no body to be seen
But is an eye that studies its black lid.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The reason can give nothing at all Like the response to desire.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Captain, the man of skill, the expert
Leader, the creator of bursting color
And rainbow sortilege, the savage weapon
Against enemies, against the prester,
Presto, whose whispers prickle the spirit.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“There comes a time when the waltz
Is no longer a mode of desire, a mode
Of revealing desire and is empty of shadows.
Too many waltzes have ended.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“I measure myself
Against a tall tree.
I find that I am much taller,
For I reach right up to the sun,
With my eye....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)