From the Poetry Center Archive: Wallace Stevens

Tonight, 92Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center presents poet Mary Oliver, who will be reading from her new book, A Thousand Mornings. The event is nearly sold out, but we have just released a last batch of premium seats.

In anticipation of this evening’s rare appearance by Ms. Oliver, we’d like to share a rare recording from another of America’s most cherished poets—Wallace Stevens. It comes from Stevens’ first appearance at the Poetry Center in 1951 and features him reading two of his longer poems, “Credences of Summer” and “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven.”

Now in midsummer come and all fools slaughtered
And spring’s infuriations over and a long way
To the first autumnal inhalations, young broods
Are in the grass, the roses are heavy with a weight
Of fragrance and the mind lays by its trouble.

Now the mind lays by its trouble and considers.
The fidgets of remembrance come to this.
This is the last day of a certain year
Beyond which there is nothing left of time.
It comes to this and the imagination’s life.

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, we have begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. To purchase tickets to tonight’s reading by Mary Oliver, please click here. To look at the rest of the season’s line-up, please click here. And for access to other recordings on our Virtual Poetry Center, please click here.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.