Searching for Mr. Stevens

About the Book

SEARCHING FOR MR. STEVENS is a quest to understand the art and mind of the brilliant but enigmatic Wallace Stevens. An utterly unique figure in 20th century letters, and possibly the only American poet to have a Friends and Enemies Society named for him, Stevens wrote some of the most haunting verse in the English language— as well as some of the most maddeningly obscure. His paradoxical personal and professional life has come to loom almost as large as his poetic achievement, and this book gives ample attention to all these elements. Any lover of Stevens’ work will find in these poems fresh angles from which to explore this dazzling American Master.

About the Author

Ken Lauter studied with Donald Hall (US Poet Laureate 2006-07) at the University of Michigan, and his work has been compared to Robert Lowell’s. Distinguished poet William Meredith has said that Ken’s poetry displays “a splendid and various gift.” His previous books are: The Other Side, Before the Light (both from BkMk Press, University of Missouri at Kansas City), The Ghosts – Notes from a Field Study, Songs from Walnut Canyon, Grand Canyon Days, Searching for Mr. Stevens, The Structure of the Body, and First Kingdoms – Poems from a Vanishing Landscape (all from Xlibris). He has also written several plays, including The Dancing Apsárás, or Captain Willard’s Blues, a prequel/sequel to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. He has received a Hopwood Award for poetry, an American Academy of Poets Prize, and a Shubert Playwriting Fellowship. He has taught literature and creative writing at four universities and also worked as a mayor’s aide, a university administrator, and a grass-roots environmental activist. Ken is married to poet and neuroscientist Dr. Judy Lauter, author of How Is Your Brain Like a Zebra? — A New Human Neurotypology and A Year of Haiku (both from Xlibris). They currently live in Nacogdoches, Texas.