In this accessible biography filled with fascinating glimpses behind the routine of Wallace Stevens's daily life, Alison Johnson helps readers to understand the man who was not only one of America's leading poets, but also the dean of surety bonds in the American insurance world and a vice president at The Hartford, one of America's leading insurance companies.
This biography offers extensive insight into the creative processes of this prolific poet, who jotted down ideas and phrases for many of his poems as he walked the two-mile route between his home and his office in downtown Hartford.
In her exploration of the psychology of this very private poet, Johnson delves into his great disappointment in the woman he married, examining three bitter poems he wrote about their failed relationship, poems he chose not to include in his books of poetry. Johnson explores the evidence that after his marriage deteriorated, Stevens included in several of his poems cryptic references to a woman he had loved before he met his wife.
Although Stevens generally led a well-ordered and quiet life, Johnson also shows that it was not without an occasional surprising incident. She relates how the executive, whom colleagues remembered as a man who dressed and spoke in a formal manner, once started a fistfight with Ernest Hemingway in Key West.
John N. Serio, former editor of the "Wallace Stevens Journal" and editor of "The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens," states in a back-cover endorsement to this biography that it will "reward both the well-seasoned aficionado and the novice. Those familiar with Stevens's life will enjoy the fine synthesis that Johnson presents as well as be challenged by some of her provocative analyses. Those unfamiliar with Stevens's life now have a compact and lively narrative of one of the most significant, yet mysterious, poets of the twentieth century."