Poem by Wallace Stevens

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 everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

1. Of the Surface of Things
2. To the Roaring Wind
3. The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm
4. Looking across the Fields and Watching the Birds Fly
5. Not Ideas about the Thing but the Thing Itself

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