Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Lee Upton’s "Prose Accompaniment for Wallace Stevens" engages deeply with Stevensian themes of abstraction, existential tension, and the interplay of fear and beauty. The poem, in its fragmented and elliptical form, mirrors the complexity of Stevens? work, inviting the reader into a kaleidoscopic meditation on love, memory, dread, and the peculiarities of human continuity.

The opening assertion—"Some people fall in love at the office simply to avoid the sensation of dread on Monday morning"—is both wryly humorous and poignantly existential. Upton captures a mundane yet profound coping mechanism for life?s drudgery: the distraction of manufactured connections as a buffer against existential dread. This framing introduces a recurring tension between the quotidian and the transcendent, a hallmark of Stevens? influence.

The observation that "revenge stalks comedy if anyone at all has a memory" builds upon this existential framework, suggesting the inextricable link between past pain and present humor. Memory, often a wellspring of creativity, becomes here a double-edged force, capable of nurturing both art and retribution. Life?s "serious business" emerges as a cycle of inescapable reckoning, where the unresolved past inevitably asserts itself—if not in one?s own life, then in the lives of one?s descendants: "If we miss you on this round we?ll find you on the next... we?ll prove it to you through your children."

The tone shifts with the introduction of "insurance," which Upton ironically presents as both safeguard and futile reassurance against the unpredictable forces of existence. This moment marks a pivot into the poem?s more abstract imagery, where the "greenery of knowledge that aims for soldiers, reinforcements" evokes a vision of intellectual or natural forces mobilized in a world where meaning is elusive: "where nothing exactly bears the meaning." The deliberate vagueness underscores the human desire to impose order or significance on an indifferent reality—a recurring motif in Stevens’ poetry.

Upton’s invocation of personal fears and longings—"I put my fears, my longings in water marks, bright goblets, a garden of lace"—shifts the focus inward, echoing Stevens’ preoccupation with the interior landscape as a site of meaning-making. The imagery is tactile and ornamental, suggesting fragility and the ephemeral beauty of human creations. These "water marks" and "bright goblets" are artifacts of longing, symbolic gestures that strive to capture the ineffable. The "garden of lace" furthers this sense of delicacy, invoking a space where human creativity intersects with the natural world, yet remains transient.

The closing lines bring the poem into a tender, almost mystical realm. The "path for our dearest and yours too by all means" broadens the scope of the speaker’s reflections to include communal and generational ties, culminating in the enigmatic image of "the baby of our baby, the baby of the sun, the baby that fits in the palm." These nested images suggest a layering of time, legacy, and potential. The baby, simultaneously fragile and luminous, becomes a symbol of renewal and continuity, echoing Stevens’ fascination with cycles of creation and the interplay of light and shadow.

Upton concludes with a playful ambiguity: "the plm at the end of the wrist." This final fragment disrupts the flow with its typographical flourish, drawing attention to the act of writing itself. The word "plm" could evoke both "palm" (as in the hand) and "psalm," suggesting a convergence of the physical and the spiritual. This duality aligns with Stevens? exploration of how the material world intersects with the imaginative and the divine.

Structurally, the poem’s prose-like form mirrors Stevens? own ventures into hybrid territories where poetry borders on philosophical rumination. Its fragmented syntax and elusive logic demand an active reader, one willing to traverse the poem’s shifting landscapes without the expectation of definitive answers. This open-endedness pays homage to Stevens? aesthetic, where the act of seeking meaning often takes precedence over finding it.

In "Prose Accompaniment for Wallace Stevens," Upton crafts a work that is both tribute and extension of Stevens? legacy. The poem reflects on the human condition with wit and gravity, weaving together the personal and the universal, the concrete and the abstract. It invites the reader into a space where language, memory, and imagination collide, embodying the spirit of its namesake while standing firmly as a work of singular insight and artistry.

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