POEM

from Anecdote of the Jar

by Wallace Stevens

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.

This poem originally appeared in the October 1919 issue of Poetry.

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 Wallace  Stevens

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