The Poetry Stash: 23Feb2024

Snow For Wallace Stevens by Terrance Hayes

Today’s poem is “Snow For Wallace Stevens” by Terrance Hayes from the collection Lighthead. The book is available for purchase here.

Please note that this poem addresses racism head-on and quotes the offensive title of a poem written by Wallace Stevens. Additional commentary is available here. And here.

Snow For Wallace Stevens by Terrance Hayes

No one living a snowed-in-life
can sleep without a blindfold.
Light is the lion that comes down to drink.
I know tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk
holds nearly the same sound as a bottle.
Drink and drank and drunk-a-drunk-drunk,
light is the lion that comes down.
This song is for the wise man who avenges
by building his city in snow.
For his decorations in a nigger cemetery.
How, with pipes of winter
lining his cognition, does someone learn
to bring a sentence to its knees?
Who is not more than his limitations?
Who is not the blood in a wine barrel
and the wine as well? I too, having lost faith
in language, have placed my faith in language.
Thus, I have a capacity for love without
forgiveness. This song is for my foe,
the clean-shaven, gray-suited, gray patron
of Hartford, the emperor of whiteness
blue as a body made of snow.

Prompts:

1.	Begin with “This song is for…”
2.	Begin with “Who is not..?”
3.	Draft a poem that addresses someone whose work is exemplary and highly admired, such as a writer, artist, celebrity; however, this person’s values are extremely offensive, ie. racism, fascism, phobic, etc.
4.	Draft a poem that incorporates borrowed lines from another poem or essay.
5.	Explore the lines "I have a capacity for love without / forgiveness." Write for 10 minutes.

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