What a lot of BS! Stevens at his best is neither abstract nor obscure. Viz:
TEA
When the elephant's ear in the park
shriveled in the frost
and the leaves on the path
ran like rats,
your lamplight fell on shining pillows
of sea-shades and sky-shades
like umbrellas in Java.
As Prof. Mezey wrote of an equally fine Larkin poem, there is here..."nothing much to paraphrase, to explicate, to be clever about. The poem reads you, to see if you know, and feel, and can keep quiet."
G.
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