The Snow Man

[MayaFeyobjects]

I have to recite this for English too :(

[Blueberryyumyum18]

I have to recite this for English by Monday ): fuckkk

[LettyCVM]

The Snow Man holds a singular place in my heart; thank you for uploading.

[WilliamFogle]

The reader is James Merrill. You can bet on that.

[4321Hunter1234]

Just great....

[MrMaurice1936]

The reader of this poem is Robert Lowell. It is, I think. his voice.

[HudDog418]

i have to recite this for English class : /

[alsonross]

Tribute to Stevens:  Red Cloth Series: Ross McCague on youtube

[jimjoyce25]

Thank you for posting this. I've learned so much about the poem listening to James Merrill read it.

[moonOandOmoon]

This is what Youtube is for.

:)

More please!

[changingone77]

Yay, I can't believe this on youtube! It's one of my favorite poems, and runs through my head every winter.

[mrsmxyzptlk]

Are there any videos of Merrill reading? I can't find anything on YouTube.

[APTAPTAPT]

i'm fairly certain that the narrator is stanley tookie williams.

anyway whats the poem about? marvelous delivery; and yet he seems to be trying to say something.

a few years back i read an article in a magazine devoted to criticism--the kind only universities have the poor sense to buy. anyway, a critic, probably a doctorate somewhere, berated wallace stevens for writing so obscurely.

it's nice to find so admirers of an art that some consider too decadent. so what is the poem about?

[mrsmxyzptlk]

It's Merrill reading, but he's quite close to Stevens's voice.  The poem is about grasping sheer being without any man-made projection of meaning onto it -- seeing "nothing that is not there" -- and realizing that while this might seem cold and vacant, and while someone attuned to it might seem cold and vacant (a "snow-man") -- it yet has value: "the nothing that is."

[verilymerrilly]

goshdarnit, how perfectly lovely! did you come up with that identification of Merrill's voice all by yourself?

[mrsmxyzptlk]

No; I had help from Merrill's voice.

[verilymerrilly]

funny, i thought nightspore, your other handle, had commented to paris_hat in 2007 that she had surprised him when she made this identification on her blog.

[mrsmxyzptlk]

You've got me confused with someone else. I have no other handle.

[Joissance]

Yeah, that's totally Merrill. That drawl!

[WaleedRahman]

If your new to Wallace Stevens, you must check-out his "The Idea of Order at Key West" and "Domination of Black." These poems are phenominal, as Stevens is phenominal.

[vergeharget]

I love this poem and I think it is one of the great poems of the English language.

Itzik Basman

[vastcompass]

This is a good reading but it doesn't sound like Stevens to me. The voice here has a thinner timbre and is more given to melodic phrasing, whereas Stevens (as far as I know, from "Voice of the Poet" etc) had a stronger, mroe even tone.

[JDourg]

I've heard James Merrill read, and I think that is him.

[franco6719]

It's not Stevens; it's James Merrill. That's just a fact. I have a copy (unfortunately VHS and don't know how to convert yet) of the whole PBS documentary from which this is taken. I'm puzzled that people are voting down these comments! (0;

[Ekrindul]

Correct, from the Voices & Visions series, which they really should release on DVD.

[Rhemasonador]

No that is NOT Steven's voice but his recordings are available--I don't beliee he recorded this poem however. Ther's a link to AUDIO PRODUCTIONS on my channel page that will take you to my acidplanet page where I have among others, Sunday Morning which I recorded several years ago.

[franco6719]

There are a certain very few things in this world that keep me alive, almost compel me to live just by popping into my mind at the very last moment, in spite of the most unbelievable suffering that I cannot put into words: the poetry of Wallace Stevens is one of these things.

[KenfromDublin]

Hi Franco -

You'll be pleased to hear that this comment of yours has just been quoted and printed in an article written by Bryan Appleyard in the Culture section of 'The Sunday Times' at the weekend. (20/1/08)

You can read the article here;

entertainment.timesonline*co*u­k/tol/arts_and_entertainment/v­isual_arts/article3199564.ece

[KenfromDublin]

*co* = .co.

[franco6719]

Yeah, I just heard about this from someone else. Interesting!! Thanks for the link.

[mrsmxyzptlk]

I know just what you mean. I guess this is the comfort that many claim to find in the Gospels, but it's Wallace Stevens for me.

[MainStreetMonochrome]

demirpla-thx for pointing out that site (and for the ingenious way in which you did so). I've spent the lat 20 mins listening to Stevens reading his work: sheer bliss :-)

[Eyehigh]

That's James Merrill reading the poem.

[demirpla]

Are you sure? If you just visit Harper Audio web site for Wallace Stevens you can listen recordings from his own voice. YouTube won't let me type the URL but I'll try:

town DOT hall DOT org SLASH radio SLASH HarperAudio

There, just find Wallace Stevens page and listen his own voice. Perhaps they are too similar, I don't know.

[Eyehigh]

I'm positive that's Merrill. I've got both Stevens and Merrill playlisted in my iPod, listen to them often (and heard JM reading live on several occasions), and that's Merrill for sure.

[MrMaurice1936]

@Eyehigh

The reader I think is Robert Lowell.

[franco6719]

Great. Does anyone have the rest of this documentary?? That is NOT not Steven's voice reading the poem, BTW.

[MainStreetMonochrome]

My favorite too.

[dcc543]

My favorite poet ever. I want to hear him read "The Idea of Order at Key West!"