#evening without angels

[dustihoney]

Sad men made angels of the sun, and of

The moon they made their own attendant ghosts,

Which led them back to angels, after death.

~ Evening Without Angels

Wallace Stevens

[aboutbirds]

the great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking. Mario Rossi Why seraphim like lutanists arranged Above the trees? And why the poet as Eternal chef d'orchestre?                                         Air is air. Its vacancy glitters round us everywhere. Its sounds are not angelic syllables But our unfashioned spirits realized More sharply in more furious selves.                                          And light That fosters seraphim and is to them Coiffeur of haloes, fecund jeweller— Was the sun concoct for angels or for men? Sad men made angels of the sun, and of The moon they made their own attendant ghosts, Which led them back to angels, after death. Let this be clear that we are men of sun And men of day and never of pointed night, Men that repeat antiquest sounds of air In an accord of repetitions. Yet, If we repeat, it is because the wind Encircling us, speaks always with our speech. Light, too, encrusts us making visible The motions of the mind and giving form To moodiest nothings, as, desire for day Accomplished in the immensely flashing East, Desire for rest, in that descending sea Of dark, which in its very darkening Is rest and silence spreading into sleep. … Evening, when the measure skips a beat And then another, one by one, and all To a seething minor swiftly modulate. Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare, Except for our own houses, huddled low Beneath the arches and their spangled air, Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire, Where the voice that is in us makes a true response, Where the voice that is great within us rises up, As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

Wallace Stevens, "Evening Without Angels," from Collected Poetry and Prose

[bookofwriting]

"That old yearning for articulation of the massive experience that can only be put in words pondered and chosen with great care, that confiding of an inward life of thought that could by no means be given its density and particularity by any other form of expression—this is, to borrow a phrase, 'the voice that is great within us' [Wallace Stevens, 'Evening without Angels']. We [at the Iowa Writers' Workshop] encourage, therapeutically, the exploration of injuries, of trauma, but there is a much broader interior life than mere biography. There is the very singular life of the observing, wondering, dreaming self, the self that in fact resonates with narrative and poetry, and feels the potential of language to recreate something like the dream of consciousness, and to make more accessible what is nearest to us: the mind, the spirit. The impulse is profound, even if the words it yields are less than profound. Who is not richer, who does not feel his or her humanity more deeply by making this attempt? Who is not a better reader for thinking attentively about the workings of language in the making of a poem or a piece of fiction? Writing is an interesting experience. Most people who make a serious try at it never really put it aside, even if they never find or never seek the approval of anyone."

— Marilynne Robinson, The Workshop as Phenomenon, June 9, 2011, The Englert Theatre, Iowa City, Iowa, The Iowa Writers' Workshop 75th Anniversary Reunion

[heteroglossia]

Let this be clear that we are men of sun And men of day and never of pointed night, Men that repeat antiquest sounds of air In an accord of repetitions. Yet, If we repeat, it is because the wind Encircling us, speaks always with our speech. Light too, encrusts us making visible The motions of the mind and giving form To moodiest nothings, as, desire for day Accomplished in the immensely flashing East, Desire for rest, in that descending sea Of dark, which in its very darkening Is rest and silence spreading into sleep. . . . Evening, when the measure skips a beat. And then another, one by one, and all To a seething minor swiftly modulate. Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare, Except for our own houses, huddled low Beneath the arches and their spangled air, Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and dire, Where the voice that is in us makes a true response, Where the voice that is great within us rises up, As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

Wallance Stevens, "Evening Without Angels"

[sunlightthroughwater]

Air is air, Its vacancy glitters round us everywhere. Its sounds are not angelic syllables But our unfashioned spirits realized More sharply in more furious selves.

~   Wallace Stevens, from "Evening Without Angels"

[sunlightthroughwater]

...Evening, when the measure skips a beat And then another, one by one, and all To a seething minor swiftly modulate. Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare, Except for our own houses, huddled low Beneath the arches and their spangled air, Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire, Where the voice that is in us makes a true response, Where the voice that is great within us rises up, As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

~  Wallace Stevens, from "Evening Without Angels"

[aisletwentyseven]

Evening Without Angels // Wallace Stevens

Why seraphim like lutanists arranged Above the trees? And why the poet as Eternal chef d’orchestre?

Air is air. Its vacancy glitters around us everywhere. Its sounds are not angelic syllables But our unfashioned spirits realized More sharply in more furious selves.

And light That fosters seraphim and is to them Coiffeur of haloes, fecund jeweler– Was the sun concoct for angels or for men? Sad men made angels of the sun, and of The moon they made their own attendant ghosts, Which led them back to angels, after death.

Let this be clear that we are men of sun And men of day and never of pointed night, Men that repeat antiquest sounds of air In an accord of repetitions. Yet, If we repeat, it is because the wind Encircling us, speaks always with our speech.

Light, too, encrusts us making visible The motions of the mind and giving form To moodiest nothings, as, desire for day Accomplished in the immensely flashing East, Desire for rest, in that descending sea Of dark, which in its very darkening Is rest and silence spreading into sleep.

…Evening, when the measure skips a beat And then another, one by one, and all To a seething minor swiftly modulate. Bare night is best. Bare earth is best. Bare, bare, Except for our own houses, huddled low Beneath the arches and their spangled air, Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire, Where the voice that is in us makes a true response, Where the voice that is great within us rises up, As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

[the-final-sentence]

Bare, bare, Except for our own houses, huddled low Beneath the arches and their spangled air, Beneath the rhapsodies of fire and fire, Where the voice that is in us makes a true response, Where the voice that is great with us rises up, As we stand gazing at the rounded moon.

Wallace Stevens, from "Evening Without Angels"