Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens is probably my favorite English language poet. His elegance, eloquence, and wordsmithiness shine above all others for me. He had wit and whimsy, along with a deep sadness and melancholy coursing through his poetry. A sometimes strange combination that worked, that merged sound and sense better than any other poet in English to my mind.
The Magritte of poets, Stevens worked for an insurance company, the Hartford, rising eventually to VP. Most, if not all of his coworkers knew nothing of his genius for poetry until after his death.
Here is a reading by Wallace Stevens of The Idea of Order at Key West.
