“Man Carrying Thing” by Wallace Stevens:
The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully. Illustration:A brune figure in winter evening resists
Identity. The thing he carries resistsThe most necessitous sense. Accept them, then,
As secondary (parts not quite perceivedOf the obvious whole, uncertain particles
Of the certain solid, the primary free from doubt,Things floating like the first hundred flakes of snow
Out of a storm we must endure all night,Out of a storm of secondary things),
A horror of thoughts that suddenly are real.We must endure our thoughts all night, until
The bright obvious stands motionless in cold.
Biblioklept 
Wonderful poem! Though I had to read it 3 times before I really understood it, it is extremely beautiful. The writer did a great job! Hope to read more amazing poetry on this blog!
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I’ve liked for a long time Stevens’s concern with not imposing order but watching to see what is actually there and not what one could wish to be there: “nothing that is not there and the nothing that is” (from “The Snow Man”). But I hadn’t known this poem–thanks for posting it.
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Reblogged this on The CMILLERPROJECT.
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[…] how about poet Wallace Stevens back in 1949 describing the aim of poetry: “The poem must resist the intelligence almost […]
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We must endure our thoughts all night, until
The bright obvious stands motionless in cold.
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