Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
	Stevens in 1948
Born	October 2, 1879; Reading, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	August 2, 1955 (aged 75); Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation	Poet; lawyer; insurance executive;
Period	1914–1955
Literary movement	Modernism
Notable works	Harmonium; "The Idea of Order at Key West"; The Man With the Blue Guitar; The Auroras of Autumn; "Of Modern Poetry"
Notable awards	Robert Frost Medal (1951)
Spouse	Elsie Viola Kachel (m. 1909–1955)
Children	Holly Stevens (1924–1992)
Signature

Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American poet. He was closely connected to the modernist movement.

He attended Harvard University. He received a degree from New York Law School in 1903. He practiced law for a number of offices and companies until 1916. In 1916, he got a job with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co. He worked for this insurance company for the rest of his life.^[1]

While he worked in his business life, he also worked at writing poetry. He became friends with many other poets, such as William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and E. E. Cummings.^[2] In 1914 and 1915, he wrote poems that are now well-known such as "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock," and "Sunday Morning."^[1]

Harmonium, his first book of poems, came out in 1923. That book had other poems that are now famous, like “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and “The Emperor of Ice-Cream."^[3]

Stevens often wrote very long poems. "The Man with the Blue Guitar" (1937) had 33 parts. In poems like this and many others, Stevens talked about the power of imagination to change ordinary life.^[3]