Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Howard Winn’s “Wallace Stevens Escapes Connecticut” offers an evocative and layered exploration of Stevens’ imaginative transcendence, framed through a mundane yet symbolically charged car journey. The poem intertwines the mechanical, natural, and mythological to reflect Stevens’ characteristic themes of perception, order, and liberation.

The opening lines anchor the scene in tactile immediacy: the poet?s body is "cradled by fabric, springs and cotton batting," and the cool steering wheel gradually warms to his touch. Winn emphasizes the materiality of the car as an extension of Stevens’ physical presence, a microcosm of the “minor mechanical universe” that functions seamlessly around him. This detailed observation mirrors Stevens’ poetic precision in capturing the textures and sensations of the everyday, where even the mundane becomes a site for reflection.

The careful driving through the Connecticut countryside is an apt metaphor for Stevens’ disciplined approach to life and art. His compliance with “rules and standards” and his reliance on the dashboard’s metrics reflect a world of order and control. Yet, this outward conformity masks an internal yearning for transcendence, a hallmark of Stevens’ poetic ethos. The departure from Hartford—his home and professional base—becomes symbolic of leaving behind the constraints of the known and venturing into the realm of imagination.

The imagery shifts as Winn introduces “great shadows” trailing the car, likened to wings of a colorless swan. These shadows serve as a metaphorical bridge between the earthly and the ethereal, grounding Stevens in his physical journey while simultaneously hinting at an impending ascent. The shadows’ transformation from surface-bound shapes to beating wings encapsulates a moment of imaginative flight, where the poet transcends his immediate environment.

The reference to Daedalus further elevates the narrative. As Stevens sheds the "steel and fabric" of the car like "reptile skins," he is no longer confined by the mechanical. Instead, he rises through the “morning mists” toward the sun, invoking both the mythic figure of Daedalus and the poet’s own quest for a higher, aesthetic plane. Winn deftly aligns this ascent with Stevens’ fascination with transformation, where the ordinary dissolves into the extraordinary.

The poem crescendos into a vision of cosmic scale: Stevens, now airborne, moves alongside Apollo in his “fiery feathered chariot.” This mythological imagery echoes Stevens’ own works, such as “Sunday Morning” and “The Idea of Order at Key West,” where the poet grapples with the intersections of the human, the natural, and the divine. Here, Stevens becomes part of a larger celestial order, his trajectory marked by "redorange" and "dark green" after-images—colors that evoke both the vibrancy of life and the shadow of mortality.

The closing lines reinforce this tension between earthbound reality and imaginative flight. The "earth becomes map," a flattened abstraction that Stevens leaves behind as he soars into the "otherwise empty skies." This detachment reflects Stevens’ belief in the supremacy of imagination as a means to transcend the limitations of physical existence. Yet, the dark green and almost-black after-image suggests that his flight is not without its shadows, a nod to the ever-present complexities of perception and the self.

Winn’s poem resonates deeply with Stevens’ own poetic concerns, capturing his intricate interplay of the real and the imagined, the material and the transcendent. By situating Stevens in a seemingly ordinary moment—driving through Connecticut—Winn honors the poet’s ability to transform the everyday into a site of profound reflection. The journey becomes not just a physical escape, but a metaphor for the boundless possibilities of the imaginative mind.

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