“Poetry is the subject of the poem,
From this the poem issues and
To this returns. Between the two,
Between issue and return, there is
An absence in reality,
Things as they are. Or so we say.
But are these separate?”

— Wallace Stevens

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

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Wallace Stevens 278

American poet 1879–1955

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Variant translation:
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as cited by Steve McCaffery, in The Darkness of the Present: Poetics, Anachronism, and the Anomaly; publ. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012, p. 16
1916

“Poetry is the subject of the poem,From this the poem issues andTo this returns. Between the two,Between issue and return, there isAn absence in reality,Things as they are. Or so we say.But are these separate?”

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Wallace Stevens 278

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“Poetry is the subject of the poem,
From this the poem issues and
To this returns. Between the two,
Between issue and return, there is
An absence in reality,
Things as they are. Or so we say.
But are these separate?”