An insurance company executive with a law degree, Wallace Stevens (1879 1951) lived an outwardly conventional life but composed highly original and exotic works of verse. One of America's most important twentieth-century poets, Stevens forever changed the landscape of modern poetry with his provocative, experimental style.This first-rate collection by the winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for poetry invites students and other readers to enjoy the richness and variety found in 82 of Stevens's finest creations. Included are such well-known compositions as "Sunday Morning," "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock," "Anecdote of the Jar," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and the title piece the author's favorite as well as lesser known yet equally stimulating works such as "The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches" and "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad."Invaluable to students of American literature, this volume will be an indispensable treasury for lovers of modern poetry."

Author Biography

An executive with a Hartford, Connecticut-based insurance company, modernist poet Wallace Stevens (18791955) published his first poems at the age of 35 and wrote most of his major works when he was well into his 50s. A poet of ideas, he explored the nature of reality and the power of the imagination."