The following poem is a response to Wallace Steven’s poem “Mozart, 1935.” It also incorporates Stevens’ decision to substitute religion and God with poetry and poet, hence the quote at the beginning of the response poem from the Adagia. In “Mozart, 1935,” I wasn’t sure what to make of the onomatopoeia representations of music in the first stanza. I interpreted them at first as representations of music contemporary to 1935 which to me signifies Jazz and the Blues. That’s how the response poem begins. “Play the present” to me means play the popular music (2). I then interpreted that “they throw stones” in response to arpeggios because that kind of classical musical training does not capture the present to them (5). It holds no catharsis for the audience while it is highly important practice to the pianist.
Within the context of the Adagia, great pressure is put on the poet. Instead of escaping the present like some might accuse him of doing, the poet has the weight of the world on his shoulders. It becomes his responsibility, according to Stevens, to be the voice of the present: “be thou, be thou the voice” (17-8). Stevens asks the poet to “be thou the voice, not you” meaning that the poet must transcend himself in his poetry in order to accomplish something greater than himself (16-7). He must become god.
“Stevens, 2014”
“After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life’s redemption”
-From Wallace Steven’s Adagia
Stevens says poet, play that Jazz
Those Blues
All those popular tunes that we all want.
But then croon those bits here and there
That people don’t care to hear you make.
Those…
Wait, that’s not what he means.
Stevens says poet, play Mozart
Like Mozart never knew.
Hear that machine gun fire and
see that Icarus kid fly his sortie’s doom.
Or something softer, like starving.
In our piano player’s tips, is that
weight meant for Atlas, or Christ.
That’s what Stevens says.
That titan shrugged, shirked that Earth
from his shoulders and rolled it onto the poet’s.
Transcend thyself poet, that’s
What Stevens asks.
For the moment. Be it. Not you.
Patrick, I really admire the way you’ve interpreted and adapted this Stevens poem. The contextualizing details you include in your interpretation and the Stevens Adagia epigraph you choose to begin your imitation poem were impressive, and the epigraph is such an apt choice for your imitation of the poem as well a strong cohesive element.
I also enjoy the idiosyncrasy you create in framing the poem with a false tone that the speaker later redacts. It works a poetically interesting way to approach the Stevens adage, “Be thou the voice, / Not you.”
The lines “Stevens says poet, play Mozart / Like Mozart never knew” really contain the essence of Stevens’s poem precisely, perfectly illustrating the poet’s idiosyncratic approach to the old “make it new” adage. The following amalgamation of graphic post-modern war images and classical Greek and Christian allusions creates a striking difference in tone to Stevens poem. Stevens’s more generalized images produce a serious but inactive tone “Be thou that wintry sound / As of a great wind howling;” your choice to create an active tone by incorporating characters like “Icarus,” “Atlas,” and “Christ” I interpret as the fulfillment of what you call Stevens’s invocation to “be the voice of the present.” The tone shift seems to indicate a perceived need to adjust the modern tone of Stevens to an appropriately contemporary tone. Your decision to include the Christ character among characters from Greek mythology at this moment of volatility fulfills the tension created by the poem’s epigraph with a really nice punch, and I really think this shows off your poetic skill. The even heavier load you create for the poet is extended even in your final line, “For the moment. Be it. Not you,” as you consolidate Stevens repetitious invocations into a single abrupt end that complements the “titan” load you bestow upon the poet.