300 Reviews

It is best to begin with Wallace Stevens.

“One must have a mind of winter … not to think / Of any misery in the sound of the wind.”

I frequently return to that first half of the singular syntactic unit that constitutes “The Snow Man” because I vacillate between a lack of comprehension and a serene reassurance that the “have” that I must have, being a must, is therefore indeed something that I do have, should I go outside.

I talk in circles, yes, but so does Stevens (as demonstrated in the even denser second half of the poem, full of its nothings and winds), and this is appropriate. To simply say that “winter is a state of mind” would be to reduce the reality of emptying my self into the landscape, perhaps on a jog to burn some of the calories consumed while lazing around my parents’ house. Winter is absorptive. It is a ventilation of the self, a process that is circular.

People fear winter because of the shortening days. But this is an astronomical misunderstanding. The solstice is in fact the beginning of the days growing longer. Winter represents the thickening of a new year, the husk of the old one having been hollowed out during autumn.

People also fear winter because of the pain of being cold. But I find the dull illumination of all my joints and ligaments, all my bare skin, preferable to the constant slickness of sweaty August. Winter is dry and clean. (I’d much rather run in a 25-degree snow than a 45-degree rain.)

Back to those nothings that conclude the poem. True, winter is a leaching away of heat. However, as Stevens reminds us, this process removes everything that is not really there, leaving behind only the certainty of what is.

-Carl Peterson

Tags: Carl Peterson, cold, dull illumination, length of days, poetry, Wallace Stevens, winter