Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores

"Hibiscus on the Sleeping Shores" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1921 and is therefore in the public domain. [Buttel, p. 148]

The subject of the poem is boredom of an afternoon and being savedfrom it by focus on an experience of brilliant color. The poetry ofthe subject upsets traditional expectations, especially in the firstand last lines. Stevens is experimenting with iconoclasm. The informality and familiarity of "I say now,Fernando" puts the reader off balance, and the last line provokes thebelle-lettrist who finds that in this poem Stevens "goes over to the Chinese". For such a critic the poem lacks an appropriately "lacquerfinish" and is "marred by the intrusion in the last line of thecritical adjective'stupid'." [http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/12/21/home/stevens-harmonium.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=login] .

Winkmost when critics wince, one might say, paraphrasing from "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman".

Notes

References

• Buttel, H. "Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium". 1967: Princeton University Press.