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The Palm at the End of the Mind: Selected Poems and a Play Paperback – February 19, 1990
Purchase options and add-ons
- Print length432 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateFebruary 19, 1990
- Dimensions5.2 x 0.93 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-100679724451
- ISBN-13978-0679724452
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Editorial Reviews
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-- Harold Bloom, Yale University
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From the Back Cover
About the Author
Wallace Stevens was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1879 and died in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1955. Harmonium, his first volume of poems, was published in 1923, and was followed by Ideas of Order (1936), The Man with the Blue Guitar (1937), Parts of a World (1942), Transport to Summer (1947), The Auroras of Autumn (1950), The Necessary Angel (a volume of essays, 1951), The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (1954), and Opus Posthumous (1957; revised and corrected in 1989). Stevens was awarded the Bollingen Prize in Poetry of the Yale University Library for 1949. He twice won the National Book Award in Poetry and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1955. From 1916 on, he was associated with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, of which he became vice president in 1934.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; First Edition (February 19, 1990)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 432 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0679724451
- ISBN-13 : 978-0679724452
- Item Weight : 12.8 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 0.93 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #719,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #60 in Modernism Literary Criticism (Books)
- #622 in Poetry Literary Criticism (Books)
- #2,683 in Literary Criticism & Theory
- Customer Reviews:
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers praise the poetry as wonderful and a great achievement of language and art. They find the poems insightful, illuminating the nature of thought and imagination. The book contains letters and other ancillary material that readers find interesting.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers appreciate the poetry's quality. They find the words wonderful, a major achievement of language and art. The resonance of the language and meaning illustrate and illuminate the nature of thought, imagination, meaning, possibility, and tragedy.
"...This is a massive achievement of language and art. This is something you really shouldn’t miss." Read more
"I recommend this book to others. It is an excellent selection of poems by Wallace Stevens...." Read more
"...Stevens is definitely our best poet. So many wonderful words!" Read more
"...I like the book for the way the poems are presented on the page, with lots of white space around them available for penciling in your own notes; that..." Read more
Customers find the book engaging. It reveals aspects of their lives they never knew about, illuminating the nature of thought, imagination, and meaning. The book contains letters and other ancillary material of interest.
"...So the poems – pretty much all of them – tell us things about our lives we never would have seen without the emotional resonances they create...." Read more
"...That edition also contains letters and other ancillary material of interest...." Read more
"...their articulation and resonance illustrating and illuminating the nature of thought, imagination, meaning, possibility, and tragedy." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2014These poems are sometimes thought to be difficult. That’s a bad rap. The poems mean exactly what they say and little “interpretation” is needed. But there is so much “meaning” packed into so few words that you really have to spend some time to get it all out. The poetic language allows us to see the world in a new light – a light created by the emotions generated by the poems themselves.
Take the title piece. It brings us to “the end of the mind, beyond the last thought.” This is the place in our brains where structure and function take over from social artifice. It is a highly formal structure: a “bronze décor” where complex constructs (the palm, a golden-feathered bird) exist. It is also a well-known concept in neurobiology – one that postulates our “higher” brain is built on primitive substrates. What’s more, it’s really not possible for our “higher selves” to communicate directly with these deeply embedded structures – the bird “sings a foreign song beyond human meaning…”
Does this have any relevance to us, to our lives in the world above? Hell yes! These base structures provided by biology and evolution trigger our responses to the immediate world. “We know then that it is not the reason that makes us happy.” It is something more basic, a thing we can never truly understand, except perhaps through our emotional responses to the world as seen in art, song or poetry. “The bird sings, the sun shines, its fire-fangled feathers dangle down.”
So the poems – pretty much all of them – tell us things about our lives we never would have seen without the emotional resonances they create. This is a massive achievement of language and art. This is something you really shouldn’t miss.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2022This copy is a replacement for my original copy of The Palm at the End of the Mind, which I have read so many times that it was falling apart. Although there are some aspects of Stevens' work that I can't quite get into (some of the long poems go on too long; sometimes his language is too high-falutin'), he's still my favorite poet. I hope it's not too strange for me to say that Allen Ginsberg is my next favorite poet. William Carlos Williams is next on that list. Stevens' two most famous poems are "The Emperor of ice Cream" and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." "Blackbird" is one of my favorites, along with "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Earthy Anecdote," and "Anecdote of the Prince of Peacocks." Don't forget me, Stevens says!
- Reviewed in the United States on January 15, 2022I recommend this book to others. It is an excellent selection of poems by Wallace Stevens. My online English college professor chose it for our class to read and discuss in our Zoom cclass this year. The bookseller did an excellent job of careful packaging. They showed they really cared that the book arrive in good condition, and it did. It arrived very quickly. The bookseller provided excellent service. I highly recommend them.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2017I wanted THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND in hard cover because the paperback I bought in 1967 for one of my college English lit courses had become to fragile to read. That was my introduction to Wallace Stevens, and I was immediately and permanently smitten! I now have this hard cover as companion to the hard cover of THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS that I scrimped and saved to purchase in 1971. I read something from one of them at least every day, and I still find gems that grab me by the mind. Stevens is definitely our best poet. So many wonderful words!
- Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2010This is a review of this particular collection, not of Stevens' poetry; others have done that. I'll just say that T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats were once my favorite 20th century poets, but I have come to rate Stevens ahead of both. You could spend the rest of your life on Stevens and die knowing that you did not exhaust what was to be found there.
This compilation of Stevens' poems was selected by his daughter, Holly Stevens. The poems are a selection, not the author's complete works, and they are presented in the order in which they were written. I like the book for the way the poems are presented on the page, with lots of white space around them available for penciling in your own notes; that's something you are likely to do a lot of with Stevens' poetry. (Then changing your mind, erasing, and writing new notes...)
But otherwise the Library of America volume is to be preferred, because it is complete, not a selection, and because the poems are organized by the successive books of poems Stevens published. That edition also contains letters and other ancillary material of interest. But the LOA volume also has very thin pages and little margin space for notations. So, I've got the LOA volume for reference and this "Palm" volume for notations. Works out pretty well, and between the the two you have just about everything.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2019Wallace Stevens was a incredible poet! Some have said his work is difficult to understand, which may or may not be true. To me, each time I read one of his poems, I find deeper meaning in his words--and that's what great poetry is all about.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2020The older I get, the more sence Wallace Stevens makes.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2018If you admire the poetry of Wallace Stevens, but only know a few poems here and there, I would definitely recommend this book!
Top reviews from other countries
- Gunveen KaurReviewed in India on August 4, 2024
1.0 out of 5 stars Looks like a pirated copy
Paid ₹638 and it still looks pirated with all its blurry words and I don’t understand Amazon — why write eligible for return if they are not taking it back 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
- Keith Conner (AKA KeefKonna)Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 13, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars The definitive, at the moment, collection of Wallace Steven's Works in chronological order.
A real work of love by Holly Stevens, his daughter,
to put together a manageable, chronological,
reasonably slim volume which re-aligns Wallace Stevens as a writer;
it is an overview of the work of this important
Modernist 20th Century writer, thinker and poet from the United States.
This book helps us make sense of the power and stature of Steven Wallace and his work;
no mean feat.
Wallace Stevens was a central figure in 20th Century poetry of the United States.
works such as "The Man With The Blue Guitar" didn't just inspire other poets,
they acted as a catalyst to other writers, artists and musicians,
and this book, "The Palm at the End of the Mind"
allows us to share this excitement;
the tentacles reaching out from Wallace Stevens
extend to figures such as Pablo Picasso,
David Hockney and Nick Cave, of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
John Gray, the philosopher said,
" I am more proud of what I have read than of what I have written";
and this book "The Palm at the End of the Mind"
was John Gray's Book Choice on Desert Island Discs!
- ZevReviewed in India on July 14, 2021
2.0 out of 5 stars Terrible paper quality!
The quality of the paper is so bad, it just kills the whole act of reading! I think it's the publishers *eye rolls* The pages are dark and just suck the ligtt out of your eyes (not a hyperbole). Look for some other publisher.
- Bertha BarlowReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Better than All the Rest
I liked the quality of the book from the paper used to the written content. The layout of poems on the page is good. There was a good selection of Poetry and Drama concluding with the wonderful poem, which is also the title of the collection, The Palm at the End of the Mind. If you want a good collection of Stephens’ poems this is the one to buy. The Faber collection is comprehensive, but the layout is cramped by comparison. I have nothing negative to say.
- GarethReviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpected brilliance
I took a literary theory course as part of my MA and the professor used some of Stevens' poems as examples of Structuralist poetry. They were, without exception, fantastic.