Mark Richardson compares the speaker of this poem to Huck Finn in an analysis that frames it as a criticism of a certain "mode of being White", noting that this poem "comes fully alive" only after one recognizes the import of a line about "squiggling saxophones". This poem describes figures "smacking their muzzy bellies in parade" as "disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed", and lists "tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk" as "novelties of the sublime". It tells its addressee that "palm for palm, [...] we are where we began" and admits that "We ag
Mark Richardson compares the speaker of this poem to Huck Finn in an analysis that frames it as a criticism of a certain "mode of being White", noting that this poem "comes fully alive" only after one recognizes the import of a line about "squiggling saxophones". This poem describes figures "smacking their muzzy bellies in parade" as "disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed", and lists "tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk" as "novelties of the sublime". It tells its addressee that "palm for palm, [...] we are where we began" and admits that "We agree in principle. That's clear." It advocates building a "haunted heaven" and projecting "a masque beyond the planets" from, respectively, a nave and a peristyle constructed from "the moral law" and "the opposing law". This poem notes that "fictive things / Wink as they will" and opens with the related declaration "Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame". For 10 points, name this Wallace Stevens poem whose title may refer to his religious mother.