This is the penultimate Thursday Short Poem of 2006, and it’s another famous one. Most American lit majors have to deal with it at one time or another. I’m including it because it’s an old favorite of mine; my mother, who introduced me to the poem, often talks about her “jar in Tennessee”. The jar is what imposes order and structure. It reminds me of my childhood attitude to nature; as a kid, I loved formal French gardens and topiaries that demonstrated a complete mastery of wildness. As a grown man, I like chaotic English gardens best. Anyhow, whether that makes sense of not, here’s the Wallace Stevens classic.
The Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
I love this poem, too, Hugo! I’m going to have to dig up my Wallace Stevens anthology and give his stuff a read this weekend. Thanks for the reminder.