tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post294956380323903629..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: "Long And Sluggish Lines"Stephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-23898422724005141892012-02-06T08:03:06.549-08:002012-02-06T08:03:06.549-08:00I'm pleased that you are still enjoying the po...I'm pleased that you are still enjoying the poems by Stevens, zmkc. He can be difficult. Thank you for the kind words on my commentary, which is, I'm afraid, a stab in the dark much of the time. <br /><br />Thanks for stopping by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-77928131170614694812012-02-05T22:33:45.458-08:002012-02-05T22:33:45.458-08:00I mentioned ages ago (slightly shamefacedly) that ...I mentioned ages ago (slightly shamefacedly) that I'd never come across Stevens until reading your blog - thank you for more of his poems, plus your commentary, which is always helpful and interestingzmkchttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08972549292961948240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-4658956573538963552012-02-04T20:32:34.999-08:002012-02-04T20:32:34.999-08:00Mr Sigler: as always, I appreciate hearing from yo...Mr Sigler: as always, I appreciate hearing from you. <br /><br />I like what you say about returning to poems -- they do sometimes seem to change when we come back to them, don't they? <br /><br />I might have to debate you on whether the final stanza is "brutal," though! "Wakefulness inside a sleep" holds a great deal of promise, I think. To me, there is an implication of birth to come: i.e., "the life of the poem in the mind has not yet begun," but it may soon do so. Just a thought.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-2860024117682669592012-02-04T07:28:40.197-08:002012-02-04T07:28:40.197-08:00Wow, you never miss the opportunity to celebrate p...Wow, you never miss the opportunity to celebrate poetically the finest gradations in the seasons, Mr. Pentz! <br /><br />I read a lot of poems, and somehow whenever Stevens comes into the mix, he always roars. Poets tend to write about their poems as journeys, how each poem is conditional and disposable as they grow, much like a snake sheds skins. Here, I see readers in their own development can view the deposited snake skins differently over time. <br /><br />Many of the nuances of this particular poem had escaped me until you posted it this morning, but now it gains power in the light of the Holderlin and Muir lost Eden elegies I’ve been reading. That brutal last stanza in particular helps me understand why Stevens said the imagination took the place of belief: because it leads, however wrapped in skeptical difficulty, to the real (what Kant called the numinal and the Asians call the tao). <br /><br />It’s always the world around us, like the cloying growth in early February, that reminds us it’s the journey itself that really matters, the snake and not the skin.WAShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10403669322174979974noreply@blogger.com