Comments on: Wallace Stevens After “Lunch”

By: Patricia Spears Jones

Patricia Spears Jones — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:35:07 +0000

Major-I think the most interesting thing about all these posts is your interest in “cross-cultural” relationships. I guess my question would be what cultures are crossed? Segregated America was like a parallel universe w/ poor Whites and poor Blacks; professionals (w/ Black folks getting paid less, often a lot less) and rich Black people and rich White people. But of course the Whites were TOTALLY PRIVILEGED so anytime there was rift in the social fabric, say choosing an African American woman for any kind of award over anybody White, there was going to be a moment where the Privileged stated or mocked their privilege–the give a . . . an inch and he’ll take a mile . . . moment.
In many ways Stevens, Pound, Frost all those guys were in sync with their time, but they were also out of it–poets usually are. The social version of these gentlemen would reveal them racist, anti-semitic, misogynist, and with Pound deeply fascistic. Well
But Brooks and Walker and every other Black American writer (unless semi braindead) knew who these men were and why they thought that way and developed deep and sustained resistance to all that power. It isn’t so much letting Ms. Brooks in and thant it is beginning to realize that the comfortable world of White Privilege in all its splendors was about to change, to diminish, if not disappear (it ain’t hardly gone). In a country where Blacks were routinely called “nigger” and whose citizenship was legally restricted via Jim Crow laws, the fact that these Black women and men decided to actually compete for national awards is amazing to me. Frankly, Stevens’ comments are silly in the way that privilege often manifests itself. You know the “mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun”with thanks to Noel Coward. It strikes me that the “narrative” around Civil Rights and its triumphs has taken away one very important component–the general ease of White Domination prior to the 1960’s-, It is much easier to think of violent Klansmen and corrupt police, but not the doctors, lawyers, union bosses, cooks, clerks, nurses, florists, shopkeepers, et al who daily made Black people’s lives so difficult.
In that way an insurance executive who also wrote important and difficult verse could be as small minded and distant from the work of Brooks and any number of poets because well, he didn’t have to be bothered.
Major–it’s an interesting task that you’ve set for yourself. I wish you well. The commentary throughout esp. from Dwayne and Rich was interesting, Keep throwing stuff against the wall-clearly there are times when it sticks.

By: Rich Villar

Rich Villar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:18:10 +0000

Actual snakes, okay, I figured as much. He’s still putting black people in with snakes. And that ain’t cool.
Very quickly: While I do appreciate the history lesson on Wilson, I am not talking about the politics of his relations with Congress, but rather, how his inner beliefs, the core that drove him, might have led him to sign on to a treaty that essentially divided up Africa according to colonial and decidedly un-democratic borders, not to mention the havoc the U.S. was willing to ignore to keep that system in place. In that case, I’d argue it’s impossible for an analyst to separate Wilson’s racist, unimaginative belief system from Wilson’s job as politician.
I never said a politician and a writer are the same, but I DO believe that when a man’s poetry, his creative project, his critical writings, etc. challenge the poet to change reality according the dictates of his imagination (a lofty goal, indeed), then I think a healthy bit a skepticism (at LEAST) can be afforded to his readers, based on what we now know about the limits of Stevens’ own imagination. (Whether he said coon or nigger, I think we can safely assume that Wallace didn’t exactly dig on us coloreds) That’s all I’m saying. I’m not here to tell people to burn his books, or march in solidarity to the Academy and demand his name be stricken from the canon. Just asking for a little relevant perspective as we study him, that’s all.
Well, that…and maybe a little vigilence, especially in the era of resignations from certain poetry societies and whatnot. Oooooo….

By: Reginald Shepherd

Reginald Shepherd — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:29:57 +0000

Dear Rich:
Why is it equally dangerous not to connect the person to the work as it is to connect the person (too strongly) to the work? What are the dangers in not connecting the person to the work? There is lots of literature about whose authors we know nothing (Shakespeare’s works would be an example, since however much people speculate, we know very little about his life).
As you write, it’s very dangerous to assume that we can know another’s mind and intentions. And frankly, if that were the interest in literature, then we could just read biographies. My presumption is that literature exists because both author and reader are interested in something other than just what’s in the author’s head. And again, I’m quite sure that none of us would have wanted to spend time with Stevens, or with Pound, or with Eliot. Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams seem like they were pretty nice, though Moore was quite eccentric.
As for Woodrow Wilson, he was not only a vile racist but an arrogant, stubborn, self-righteous ass who sabotaged the League of Nations he founded–by refusing any compromise with Congress, he ensured that the US would not join. And by refusing to uncouple the Treaty of Versailles from the League of Nations, he also ensured that the US would not ratify the treaty and thus lend its support to maintaining the post-war order. This, obviously, had some very serious consequences. But Wilson was a politician. His significance is exactly in his thoughts and actions, since they were public thoughts and actions and had public consequences. I don’t think a politician is comparable to a writer, because Wilson’s or any politician’s opinions shape their policies.
Politics was what Wilson did, which isn’t the same for a writer. We only care about Stevens’ politics becasuse we care about his writing and thus, transitively, about the man who produced that writing.
The fact that Stevens said “I know it’s not polite to call a lady a coon” indicates that the “Who let the nigger in?” version, as opposed to the “Who’s the coon?” version, probably isn’t accurate. Black people didn’t enter Stevens’ world or his consciousness except as imaginary figures. His remark, again despite the offensive language, could be taken as curiosity about what was to him something/someone (yes, I’m aware of the conflation) exotic. Like the time an old woman in Vermont asked if she could touch my hair, and was surprised that it was soft and not like a Brillo pad. Stevens was racist, yes, but I don’t think more than many others of his time, and perhaps less than some.
By the way, the snakes in Stevens’ comment on the Italian invasion of Ethiopia weren’t people (that would be the coons), but actual snakes.
all best,
Reginald

By: Alicia (AE)

Alicia (AE) — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:43:00 +0000

Sorry–wasn’t meaning to be “Don’t worry be happy”–I just find the story deeply depressing–being a fan of both Brooks and Stevens. It is interesting to me, though, that from the reaction, Stevens’ remarks were clearly off base even back then, even in an Old Boys club.

By: Aaron Fagan

Aaron Fagan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 15:31:45 +0000

The old dogs love to quote Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
That strikes me first and foremost as a fancy-pants (rolled) way of a dog chasing its tail. It also points to a certain definition of celebrated insanity–doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result. What have writers done for the most part than dramatize that very definition of insanity. We keep going to the empty well of the past to validate the present with a kind of pathological obsession with the future. It is bad physics at best. There is a kind of collective and persistent ill will and indignant displeasure with the past for being what the past had or was. We try to dress it up in different clothes, but it is all still rotten to the core inside. (Think of Norman Bates and his Mom.) That is where the critical theory folks get all that reification and fetishism business. Which make a good deal of common sense.

By: Jayal Fred

Jayal Fred — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 14:33:18 +0000

Everyone’s a little bit racist
Sometimes.
Doesn’t mean we go
Around committing hate crimes.
Look around and you will find
No one’s really color blind.
Maybe it’s a fact
We all should face
Everyone makes judgments
Based on race.
–Avenue Q

By: Rich Villar

Rich Villar — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:56:00 +0000

Major: You’re right, one can learn much from a non-ally, especially the dead ones. Even at these early stages of my career, I must try to hold people accountable for their actions and their words, even if some of their work is brilliant in some way.
Woodrow Wilson founded the League of Nations, despite being a vile racist. Likewise, Wallace Stevens was able to write a profound ars poetica, and put pen to some amazing ideas about poetry as a method of shaping one’s reality. I still contend that these life ideas can be found woven through the man’s written work, but how much MORE profound, how much more profoundly humanist, could he (or indeed, his poetics) have been, had he taken the chance to imagine fellow humans as something other than coon, or snake, or Dago, or nigger. And how much different would the world have been had not the racist Wilson sat down to help divide the world between two empires at the Paris Peace Conference. Unfair comparison? Suffice it to say that I believe one cannot erase his worldview from his writing anymore than he can from his politics. That’s a lesson for examining poets and critics, dead OR alive.

By: James Hoch

James Hoch — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:12:41 +0000

Hey Everybody,
It is dangerous to take quotes out of context. Dangerous in that we might condemn the innocent and dangerous too that we might forgive the unforgivable. Stevens’ quote came at a time that was not so long ago. It wasn’t the 18th century! Certainly, he was priveleged enough to have all the access needed to be a kinder, smarter human being. Perhaps, the specific context of the quote led him to parody or be irreverent or expressive or what have you. But the historical context doesn’t lend to forgiveness. If he meant it, he should’ve known better. Perhaps, this can be noted in the response of the peers, which could be seen as shocking in the way that folks are shocked when someone is saying what they are quietly thinking. This, of course, is a guess.
It is dangerous too to conflate work with person, to think we know some other’s mind. But it is equally dangerous not to connect work with person. In this case, we have instances of how the life might illumniate the work or how it fails to illuminate the work, which means that we ought to be careful where and when we tread, but not forbidden or fearful to tread.
It is dangerous too to ignore the role of PO-BIZ. Meaning: Surely, the person (and not the work) influences the reputation of others whether through ascent or descent of another’s work. Surely, all the failings of a given person are likely to come into play when they look to annointing this poet OVER that one. I think Major’s post focused on how racism might’ve come to shape who-got-what and how the probable reactions and fear of those reactions might shape those decisions. More importantly, Major’s post seem to mainly concern itself with how people might respond once such ascent is given, the backlash.
James

By: Major

Major — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:22:11 +0000

Dwayne, you summed up succinctly my point! Thank you.

By: Francisco Aragón

Francisco Aragón — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 12:22:06 +0000

Dear Vivek:
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. It was a pleasure to read and learn from. One passage that was useful to me ( thinking of one of my areas of interest and concern) was:
“I find it telling that, as it appears at least, Stevens had not heard of Brooks and could not even conceive of a Black woman winning the Pulitzer. As late as the 1950s, Black people existed for him as primal poets and sources of inspiration but clearly not as (even potentially) sophisticated writers.”
Thank you,
FA