Whether it’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour,” or any number of poems from the dozen of collections he published in his lifetime, Wallace Stevens’s poems are considered essential to the canon of modern American poetry.
In his essay, “Invisible Priest: Contemporary American Poetry and the Echo of Stevens,” Dean Rader examines the ways contemporary poets dialogue with Stevens’s poetics and complex legacy. Read about how poets like Terrance Hayes, Jay Hopler, Cate Marvin, and others confront, question, or challenge Stevens in their work.