Even a lone wolf breathes the same air as the rest of us
January 11th, 2011
The soul, he said, is composed
Of the external world.
– Wallace Stevens
Even a mentally unstable person is influenced by the culture around him; perhaps especially a mentally unstable person is going to be influenced by the tone of the culture around him. Perhaps he is the canary in the coal mine. Just because a suspect is thought to be mentally unstable does not release people from the responsibility of their own words and actions and the way those words and actions set a tone in the world around us.
Filed under There's a world outside my window | Comments (5)5 Responses to “Even a lone wolf breathes the same air as the rest of us”
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May I post this on my Facebook? I would post your name or “anonymous.” Whatever you prefer.
@ Gretchen, sure you can re-post this under my name. Thanks for asking.
Beautifully said. It catches at my heart too.
just out of curiosity…are you at all partial to Wallace Stevens?
Jessica, my familiarity with Stevens is woefully inadequate for a US poet. I’ve actually set myself as a project for this year to read one Wallace Stevens poem a day – that’ll get me all the way through the Selected Poems and into an additional book. I’m hoping, as I get closer to the end of the Selected Poems, that I’ll know where to go next. Harmonium? The Collected Works? We’ll see. His use of repetition is masterful, I’ll say that.