/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18271663]

Where the fuck can I find this? Have Jewish academics just taken it out of circulation. There's not even a fucking goodreads page. Did Stevens just disown it to save his reputation? This is fucking censorship retards.

[Anonymous No.18271729]

>>18271663
I can't find any digital or physical editions available online. wtf

[Anonymous No.18271733]

>>18271729
It's buried in the Library of America collection of Wallace Stevens, they literally do not want you to read this poem.

[Anonymous No.18271740]

>>18271733
I'm searching libraries. It looks like a print copy is available in some university libraries.

[Anonymous No.18271756]

Interesting. What is it about?

[Anonymous No.18271769]

>>18271740
Probably need to be a student or something, or read it with an advisor so you 'don't interpret incorrectly.'

>>18271756
Longest Poem, around 100 pages, of Wallace Stevens' career written in 1936 to seperate himself from leftist movements and made Harold Bloom seethe. Has been out of circulation since then and was not re-published in his complete works collection (the only poem not to be). It's called Owl's Clover. Some have said it explores right-wing political extremes as a meditation, but there's a lot more analyses on the poem available than the poem itself.

[Anonymous No.18271832]

>>18271663
Well that's extremely annoying. There is a google books version but you can't look inside it

[Anonymous No.18271835]

>>18271663
Good. Antisemites shall not be published

[Anonymous No.18271871]

>>18271832
yes

[Anonymous No.18272004]

>>18271663
Looking for it right now. I've got library access to Cornell and Columbia so hopefully one of them will have it. If it is in the "Rare manuscript library", its probably a 1st edition and would be extremely hard to get a hold of even as a student.

Im a poetry grad student with a fair bit of publishing experience and I have to make it known to everyone in this thread that
>this book is hard to find because it is a poetry book and an unpopular one at that

Many, many, many good poetry books become obscure and rare because they never get reprinted. This happens not because of some censorship agenda but because the huge publishing houses know that poetry readership is limited so they dont waste their resources on anything except collected works and major works which are guaranteed to sell. Most of the reprint of good poetry books is done by smaller independent presses such as Ugly Duckling and New Directions which only print the books their editors personally enjoy (small press distribution is not profitable at all so they are more willing to take a risk to rescue a book). I was searching for Jack Spicer's The Heads of the Town up to the Ether a few months ago and encountered a similar problem. Spicer's work is not controversial at all, however it is obscure and I was forced to buy his complete works (which was put out by Wesleyan's press ie: a small dedicated poetry press). The fact that this work of Stevens' is also controversial to leftist politics doesn't mean that its being actively suppressed, it just means that no one is trying to save it from the depths of obscurity.

This kind of stuff happens ALL THE TIME in poetry. There's too much to keep in constant circulation and not a big enough audience to justify digitizing it, etc.

[Anonymous No.18272149]

>>18272004
google books though apparently has a scanned copy but you can't search within it

[Anonymous No.18272159]

>>18272149
Thats dumb as hell. Honestly the internet is such a fucking scam wrt to information. Like what the fuck is the point in uploading it, no one on earth is gonna pay to read Owl's Clover, also its probably public domain at this point

[Anonymous No.18272161]

>>18272004
wouldn't you expect it to be included in any COMPLETE edition though

[Anonymous No.18272170]

>>18272161
anon above said it's in the library of america edition of stevens' work

[Anonymous No.18272175]

>>18272161
It is in Stevens Library of Congress volume though

Ive found many "complete works" which miserable fail theur titles. Mark Twains so called complete stories were misding at least 2 that i had read in anthologies

[Anonymous No.18272180]

>>18272175
*Library of America

[Anonymous No.18272188]

>>18272159
it's not quite public domain in America yet. I find it unlikely that it is really censorship at work here, I mean they allow actual extremist texts to the easily findable all over the internet. But I can't find a very good reason for this poem to be unfindable when there are obviously scans of it.

[Anonymous No.18272189]

>>18272170
>>18272175
Well hopefully some anon will scan it online from Library of America edition

[Anonymous No.18272228]

>>18272188
Exactly. Lots of poetry out there, very few people who maintain the library

>>18272189
>>18271663
Well I added it to Goodreads so hopefully someone finds the text soon enough

[Anonymous No.18272301]

Can this bloke at the very least pay some money to access it?

[Anonymous No.18273795]

>>18271835

[Anonymous No.18273814]

>>18271663
You mean to say you don't have the whole thing memorized?

[Anonymous No.18274507]

>>18272004
My point was that it's implictly censorship. If you don't own rights or a publishing house it gets surpressed.

I don't think there's a political agenda against it, but I think it being right-wing (not in a contemporary meme way, but in a 1930s way) plays a role in it not being re-published.

>>18272228
Thanks anon

>>18272301
no

[Anonymous No.18274571]

>>18271663
According to openlibrary, there were only 105 copies printed, so it seems really unlikely you'll get to read it without special access.

[Anonymous No.18274724]

From the Samuel French Morse Collected Stevens poems. Owls Clover is not in it but here's more info than i found online. Will add this to the goodreads later

[Anonymous No.18274755]

>>18274724
I have the collected Poems of Wallace Stevens and yeah that's how I realized it was missing it. I don't feel like buying a 20 dollar collection (LOA version) just for one poem that might not even be great. I just want to read it lol.

[Anonymous No.18274766]

>>18271769
>and made Harold Bloom seethe
Where did he seethe? In the book on Stevens?

[Anonymous No.18274783]

>>18274766
He just called it bad or something. Sounded like he was offended too, and then pretended it never happened when he published his next collection which 'rectified' it.
Bloom got mad about some of those early Eliot ones too lol.

[Anonymous No.18274786]

>>18271663
OP don't be ridiculous. This isn't censorship. An author's poetry publications almost never get reprinted unless they are in anthology or collection format. Academia and publishing houses are not trying to 'censor' this book, it's just never been very popular, as a result, not many were printed and it was never reprinted, making it very rare and hard to find. There are thousands of books not on goodreads for this very same reason regardless of their content.
Besides, why would they bother to censor this book? There is plenty of Stevens' poetry out there which is pretty contentious but is still included and printed in collections and anthologies. And then Stevens is hardly the only controversial poet still in print. Before you jump to "it's the Jews!" try to think more logically.

[Anonymous No.18274807]

>>18274507
>The market is implicitly censorship
You some kinda commie?

[Anonymous No.18274818]

>>18274786
It's functionally censorship, maybe for obscure reasons but not poltiical. Until I find a copy it's being censorsed by publishhing houses shilling Rupi Kaur.
Yes, those books are functionally censored too, there's so many great books that are hard to find.
Yes it's not the Jews, but we're on 4chan so mine as well have some fun :D

[Anonymous No.18274824]

>>18274807
I'm economically moderate, I think publishing houses have an incentive to make a profit, but should also preserve great works of respected authors like Wallace Stevens not let them fade into obscurity even if the demand isn't high. The LOA editon has it, at least, so I'll probably end up ordering that used or getting it from the library

[Anonymous No.18274944]

>>18274724
>an almost Mozartean tour de force.