I was not familiar with Stevens work until reading Harold Bloom's discussion and presentation of some of his poems in Bloom's anthology of the best English language poems. I loved what I read there and quickly put Stevens on my list. Every time I was in a used bookstore, I looked for a collection of his works until I found one.

So, this has been my morning poetry reading for a year and a half as I worked my way through the thick volume of his collected works. And I didn't love them. Occasionally a poem did leap out at me, but taken together they did not. I almost think individual Stevens poems are more resonant for me than a collection of his work.

He does have powerful and interesting use of language through metaphor and symbol. But rarely in this volume did an entire poem grab me, in the way that some poets work does. I guess my taste was just different, which was a surprise given his place in the American poetic tradition. He is clearly a very good poet, but will not be among my personal favourites.