Wallace Stevens. Anecdote of the Jar. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

Anecdote of the Jar

By Wallace Stevens


From “Pecksniffiana” 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,	5
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.	10
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.