The Emperor of Ice-Cream and Other Poems

An insurance company executive with a law degree, Wallace Stevens (1879–1951) lived an outwardly conventional life but composed highly original and exotic works of verse. One of America's most important twentieth-century poets, Stevens forever changed the landscape of modern poetry with his provocative, experimental style.
This first-rate collection by the winner of the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for poetry invites students and other readers to enjoy the richness and variety found in 82 of Stevens's finest creations. Included are such well-known compositions as "Sunday Morning," "Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock," "Anecdote of the Jar," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and the title piece — the author's favorite — as well as lesser known yet equally stimulating works such as "The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches" and "The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad."
Invaluable to students of American literature, this volume will be an indispensable treasury for lovers of modern poetry.

Carnet de Voyage
From a Junk
Home Again
Phases
Tea
Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges
Peter Quince at the Clavier
The Silver Plough-Boy
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
Sunday Morning
Domination of Black
Tattoo
The Florist Wears Knee-Breeches
Song
Six Significant Landscapes
Inscription for a Monument
Bowl
The Worms at Heaven's Gate
Primordia
To the Roaring Wind
Valley Candle
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
The Wind Shifts
Meditation
Gray Room
Explanation
Theory
The Plot Against the Giant
"Lettres d'un Soldat"
Anecdote of Men by the Thousand
Metaphors of a Magnifico
Depression Before Spring
Earthy Anecdote
Moment of Light
Le Monocle de Mon Oncle
Architecture for the Adoration of Beauty
Nuances of a Theme by Williams
Anecdote of Canna
The Apostrophe to Vincentine
Life Is Motion
Fabliau of Florida
Homunculus et La Belle Etoile
The Weeping Burgher
Peter Parasol
Exposition of the Contents of a Cab
Ploughing on Sunday
Banal Sojourn
The Indigo Glass in the Grass
Anecdote of the Jar
Of the Surface of Things
The Curtains in the House of the Metaphysician
The Place of the Solitaires
The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage
Colloquy with a Polish Aunt
Invective Against Swans
Infanta Marina
Cortège for Rosenbloom
The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad
Palace of the Babies
From the Misery of Don Joost
The Doctor of Geneva
Gubbinal
The Snow Man
Tea at the Palaz of Hoon
The Cuban Doctor
Another Weeping Woman
Of the Manner of Addressing Clouds
Of Heaven Considered as a Tomb
The Load of Sugar-Cane
Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores
The Bird with the Coppery, Keen Claws
Lulu Gay
Lulu Morose
Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion
Stars at Tallapoosa
Bantams in Pine-Woods
The Ordinary Women
Frogs Eat Butterflies. Snakes Eat Frogs. Hogs Eat Snakes. Men Eat Hogs
A High-Toned Old Christian Woman
O, Florida, Venereal Soil
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
To the One of Fictive Music