“The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.”

— Wallace Stevens

"Men Made Out of Words"
Transport to Summer (1947)
Context: Life consists
Of propositions about life. The human
Revery is a solitude in which
We compose these propositions, torn by dreams, By the terrible incantations of defeats
And by the fear that the defeats and the dreams are one. The whole race is a poet that writes down
The eccentric propositions of its fate.

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Wallace Stevens 278

American poet 1879–1955

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