The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens

I am a fantastically slow reader. I bought this book in summer of 2023 and as of February 2024, I am on page 88. Not that this is not a good book: it is a good book. I put it down for several months. A caesura, but a recoverable one.

I am enjoying reading about Stevens’ life in the early 20th century and the feel and smell of this nice hardback book. Reading about a literary figure and great poet who led a “boring” life, (Wallace being an insurance man). But he knew William Carlos Williams and that French guy, who was a pioneer of Dada.

He drank. He smoked. He wrote poems.

How good a poet was Stevens?

Why has Frank Skinner not covered him yet?

- Started: 13 Feb 2024