tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post7314975439829065422..comments2024-03-23T20:37:37.891-07:00Comments on First Known When Lost: HereStephen Pentzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-49246548405598186182017-12-18T21:20:33.942-08:002017-12-18T21:20:33.942-08:00hart: That's very kind of you: thank you ver...hart: That's very kind of you: thank you very much. And I owe thanks to you for being a regular visitor here, for which I am grateful. I hope you will continue to stop by. I wish you all the best in the coming year.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-86688126569390598942017-12-18T21:15:54.922-08:002017-12-18T21:15:54.922-08:00Mr. Guirl: Thank you very much for your kind word...Mr. Guirl: Thank you very much for your kind words. And thank you as well for your long-term presence here, which I greatly appreciate. It is always good to hear from you.<br /><br />Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-89986747847007957032017-12-18T11:37:21.494-08:002017-12-18T11:37:21.494-08:00I don't post often--but it such a pleasure to ...I don't post often--but it such a pleasure to read your blog, the poems and the pictures make a perfect package.harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17429442912701353172noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-21100234488255166862017-12-15T11:19:41.571-08:002017-12-15T11:19:41.571-08:00Thank you Mr Pentz for your wonderful posts this y...Thank you Mr Pentz for your wonderful posts this year. And to your readers for their incisive comments. Your blog is a reprieve from the daily news and brings much enjoyment.<br /><br />Happy Holidays and may the new year be exactly what you most hope for. <br /><br />Tim GuirlAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-70676599815309603482017-12-07T21:03:43.438-08:002017-12-07T21:03:43.438-08:00Jeff: You are fortunate to be able to have that s...Jeff: You are fortunate to be able to have that sort of daily contact with the World's particulars. It is something hard to come by.<br /><br />Your observation that "The Region November" is "a way into [Stevens's] work" for you resonates with me: the poem (along with a number of others, many of which have appeared here before) has played exactly that role for me. I also agree that it can be difficult to know "what to make of him." I struggled with that for many years, until I decided that I would establish a foothold with a handful of poems that greatly moved me (and were beautiful), and move outward into his work from them, while regularly returning to them. There are still vast stretches of his poetry that confound me -- that will always confound me. But that handful of poems has expanded greatly, bit by bit, over the years, and they are an important part of my life. And new ones continue to be added. You know how it is with these things: one has to be patient, and let things sit.<br /><br />It is always a pleasure to hear from you. Thank you very much for stopping by again. Best wishes for the holidays.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-83727420414916328322017-12-05T22:12:13.952-08:002017-12-05T22:12:13.952-08:00Now that I live in a place where I can step outsid...Now that I live in a place where I can step outside in the middle of the night and see and encounter nothing but the woods (and the things that live in it), I'm struck by how perfectly "The Region November" gets the sense of the season, the sense that the woods are trying to tell you something profound in a language you'll never master. Stevens wrote so much that I've never quite known what to make of him; this poem is a way into his work for me.Jeffhttp://www.quidplura.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-69448990328963222762017-12-02T21:22:42.065-08:002017-12-02T21:22:42.065-08:00George: Thank you very much for those thought-pro...George: Thank you very much for those thought-provoking observations. I confess that I'm unfamiliar with Fichte's work. I only know of him second-hand through Schopenhauer, and through reading about Schopenhauer. But, from what I understand, he was one of the purveyors of German idealism, which I have never been fond of. I'm afraid I'm like Samuel Johnson and Berkeley's idealism: I always feel like kicking a stone and saying: "I refute them thus!" But many have accused Johnson of misunderstanding and oversimplifying, and that is no doubt true of me as well. I also suspect that I am greatly mischaracterizing Fichte's philosophy by focusing on idealism.<br /><br />Based upon your description, that is an interesting way of looking at "The Snow Man," and it is certainly worth considering. As you know, Stevens was well-read when it came to philosophy, so he was no doubt familiar with Fichte, Kant, et al. That being said, we should remember something he wrote to Robert Pack, who had asked him to review a draft of an essay Pack had written on his poetry (the letter is dated December 28, 1954): "I don't mean to try to exercise the slightest restraint on what you say. Say what you will. But we are dealing with poetry, not with philosophy. The last thing in the world that I should want to do would be to formulate a system." <br /><br />Of course, we shouldn't take everything a poet says about his or her own poetry at face value: there may be other agendas at work. Still, my sense is that what Stevens enjoyed was the ever-changing nature of his ongoing poetic activity. In this regard, a comment made by Stevens at the outset of his letter to Pack may be pertinent: "At the top of page 16 of your paper you say: 'Mr. Stevens' work does not really lead anywhere.' This is not quite the same thing as get anywhere . . . That a man's work should remain indefinite is often intentional. For instance, in projecting a supreme fiction, I cannot imagine anything more fatal than to state it definitely and incautiously."<br /><br />Your thought connecting "The Snow Man" and "Desert Places" is lovely. That is one of my favorite Frost poems.<br /><br />As always, thank you very much for visiting, and for sharing your thoughts. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-9031745352071909782017-12-02T08:51:39.279-08:002017-12-02T08:51:39.279-08:00John: Thank you very much for sharing those thoug...John: Thank you very much for sharing those thoughts, and for sharing Stevens's poem as well: as you suspected, it is one of my favorites by him. It brings to mind two other poems by him (which I'm sure you know) which appear in sequence in "The Rock" section of his Collected Poems: "A Quiet Normal Life" and "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour." Both of these are wonderful late poems which share, with the poem you quote, those qualities "of stillness and poise" that you describe. For instance, these lines are from "A Quiet Normal Life": "Here in his house and in his room,/In his chair, the most tranquil thought grew peaked/And the oldest and the warmest heart was cut/By gallant notions on the part of night."<br /><br />I completely agree with your description of why one returns to Stevens's poems, even though one may not "understand" them fully. I have given up the attempt to "understand" every line that he wrote: I return for the beauty.<br /><br />Your memory of the skylarks in Norfolk is lovely: it replicates exactly what prompted Bashō's haiku! How fortunate you are to have had such an experience. In the same company as Bashō.<br /><br />As ever, I greatly appreciate your stopping by. I wish you and your family a happy holiday season.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-6654251257030357502017-12-02T08:28:28.150-08:002017-12-02T08:28:28.150-08:00Janet: It's nice to know the building is stil...Janet: It's nice to know the building is still there, and is being put to good use. Thank you very much for your kind words about the post, and for stopping by.Stephen Pentzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14882220887712092005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-73800758333692529152017-12-01T17:23:14.894-08:002017-12-01T17:23:14.894-08:00I have just read Fichte's The Vocation of Man,...I have just read Fichte's <i>The Vocation of Man</i>, his attempt to write in plain language what he wrote in technical language in <i>The Science of Knowledge</i>. The argument of it is that in proceeding from the "objective", realistic side, the world of cause and effect, one finds oneself caught in the structure of necessity, without freedom; in proceeding from the "subjective", idealistic side, one finds oneself as free, in a way the source of the world, but without reason to suppose that there is anything independent of one's representations; that the way out of the dilemma is on the one hand to accept the world outside one on faith--as a working hypothesis, say--, and on the other to prove one's freedom by exercising it.<br /><br />I wonder about your reading of the line "Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is there." I'd say that this viewer perceives only what is in front of him, and sees also sees the emptiness. "[T]he nothing that is there" recalls to me Frost's "The loneliness includes me unawares" in "Desert Places".<br /><br />You raise some interesting points. I should find the volume of Stevens on my shelves and have another look.Georgehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14819154529261482038noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-47927254387235001192017-12-01T08:26:51.072-08:002017-12-01T08:26:51.072-08:00Stephen,
The Region November, though I hadn’t know...Stephen,<br />The Region November, though I hadn’t known it before reading it here, is I would agree, a poem that makes you want to return to it. I don’t feel I understand it, but that’s what makes me want to return, not only to it but so many of Stevens poems. That sense of mystery, the inexhaustible feeling that makes the poems fresh, imbued with a sense of wonder each time you come back.<br /><br />One of the Stevens poems I always return to is, “The house was quiet and the world was calm”. It has a wonderful sense of stillness and poise, almost a meditative quality. There are moments, sitting and reading when we ourselves seem to approach or sometimes arrive at something like the condition which I think is being described in this poem. I’m sure you know it well.<br /><br />The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br />The reader became the book; and summer night<br /><br />Was like the conscious being of the book.<br />The house was quiet and the world was calm.<br /><br />The words were spoken as if there was no book,<br />Except that the reader leaned above the page,<br /><br />Wanted to lean, wanted much to be<br />The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom<br /><br />The summer night is like a perfection of thought.<br />The house was quiet because it had to be.<br /><br />The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:<br />The access of perfection to the page.<br /><br />And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,<br />In which there is no other meaning, itself<br /><br />Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself<br />Is the reader leaning late and reading there.<br />…<br /><br />We read and discover unexpected correlations. They do not explain, but create new mysteries that exist and are wholly exempt need for further clarification of meaning.<br /><br />These lines demonstrate that quality beautifully.<br /><br />“It is the cry of leaves that do not transcend themselves,<br />In the absence of fantasia, without meaning more<br />Than they are in the final finding of the ear”<br /><br />The haiku of Basho reminds of walking along the north Norfolk coast some years ago on a beautiful morning in early summer.<br />There was no one to be seen, only the sound of the sea below the crumbling, sandy cliffs and above us, accompanying us, or so it seemed, skylarks were singing. They were there on our outward walk and still there, still singing on our return. It was as if the hours of daylight were not long enough for them.<br />John Ashtonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5010170380967519230.post-52833934715176348152017-12-01T01:31:16.263-08:002017-12-01T01:31:16.263-08:00I recognise that Cheshire mill! Lovely cafe in it...I recognise that Cheshire mill! Lovely cafe in it now. <br /><br />Another beautiful post . Thank you. Janethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09571577405797531948noreply@blogger.com