"The Man Whose Pharynx Was Bad" by Wallace Stevens E.E. Phone Poem

Ye Olde Showe Notees

Oh! Hello there! I didn’t see you come in. This is the first episode of E.E. Phone Poem (as indicated by the fact that there are no previous episodes). This initial episode is a little rough, but I do hope you’ll bear with us as we iron out all the little bumps and bleeps in our newborn symphoniad* of podcastreation*. I’m not quite sure what else to say by means of an introduction, so I’ll just provide you all with some actually useful supplementary material for the episode.


The text of the poem is, as far as I’ve been able to gather, in the public domain, so I’ve reproduced it here for reference in both it’s revised 1931 version and the 1921 original:
The text of the poem is, as far as I can tell, in the public domain, so I've reproduced it here for reference in both it's revised 1931 version and the 1921 original:


The Man Whose Pharynx was Bad

By Wallace Stevens

This is the revised 1931 version:

The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian ...
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.



and this is the original from 1921 (removed lines bolded):


The time of year has grown indifferent.
Mildew of summer and the deepening snow
Are both alike in the routine I know:
I am too dumbly in my being pent.

The wind attendant on the solstices
Blows on the shutters of the metropoles,
Stirring no poet in his sleep, and tolls
The grand ideas of the villages.

The malady of the quotidian ...
Perhaps if summer ever came to rest
And lengthened, deepened, comforted, caressed
Through days like oceans in obsidian

Horizons, full of night's midsummer blaze;
Perhaps, if winter once could penetrate
Through all its purples to the final slate,
Persisting bleakly in an icy haze;

One might in turn become less diffident,
Out of such mildew plucking neater mould
And spouting new orations of the cold.
One might. One might. But time will not relent.


Other Notes and Ephemera

Here is a picture of Noah Webster (not pictured, The Devil):