The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar

"And they said then, 'But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,..."

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

Release date:
27 March 2025

The Man With the Blue Guitar - a tune beyond

"Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.
There are no shadows in our sun,..."

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar - point of light

"It is the sun that shares our works.
The moon shares nothing. It is a sea."

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar - the moon shares nothing

They said, 'You have a blue guitar,
You do not play things as they are.'

The man replied, 'Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar - things as they are

The color like a thought that grows
Out of a mood, the tragic robe...

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar - a thought that grows

"To strike his living hi and ho,
To tick it, tock it, turn it true,

To bang from it a savage blue,
Jangling the metal of the strings"

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar - savage blue

"To come, a wrangling of two dreams.
Here is the bread of time to come,

Here is its actual stone."

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With The Blue Guitar - actual stone

"Raise reddest columns. Toll a bell
And clap the hollows full of tin.

Throw papers in the streets, the wills
Of the dead, majestic in their seals."

The Man With the Blue Guitar is a poem published in 1937 by Wallace Stevens. It is divided into thirty-three brief sections, or cantos. In the poem, an unnamed "they" says, of the titular man, "you do not play things as they are", sparking a prolonged meditation on the nature of art, performance, and imagination.

The Man With the Blue Guitar

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