Aphorisms from Adagia (mostly) Wallace Stevens

To give a sense of the freshness or vividness of life is a valid purpose for poetry.

The poet makes silk dresses out of worms

It is life that we are trying to get at in poetry.

Accuracy of observation is the equivalent of accuracy of thinking.

A poem is a meteor.

A new meaning is the equivalent of a new word.

In poetry at least the imagination must not detach itself from reality.

All poetry is experimental poetry.

We say, also, that poetry is an instrument of the will to percieve the innumerable accords, whether of the imagination or of reality, that make life a thing different from what it would be without such insights.

One reads poetry with one’s neerves.

Sentimentality is a failure of feeling.

All of our ideas come from the natural world: Trees=umbrellas.

It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.

A poet looks at the world somewhat as a man looks at a woman.

The poet is the priest of the invisible.

The acquisitions of poetry are fortuitous: trouvailles. (Hence, its disorder).

A poem should stimulate the sense of living and of being alive.

Poetry is a renovation of experience. Originality is an escape from repetition.

Poetry is, (and should be,) for the poet, a source of pleasure and satisfaction, not a source of honors.