Elizabeth Park’s Poetic Gardener: Remembering Wallace Stevens

August 2, 1955

On this day, the literary world lost one of its most distinguished voices when Wallace Stevens departed this earthly garden, leaving behind verses as carefully tended as any prized perennial. The poet who once observed that "Death is the mother of beauty" has himself now passed into that maternal embrace, leaving us to ponder the fragile splendor of existence.

"Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful; which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers."

Now, dear gardeners, isn't that a thought to carry with you as you tend your plots?

The fleeting glory of a perfect rose holds more true beauty than any silk imitation precisely because we know it cannot last.

Stevens stood among the most gifted poets of our century, though his daily life would have seemed ordinary to passersby. His roots were firmly planted near Elizabeth Park in Hartford, Connecticut, where he cultivated both home and inspiration.

By day, this remarkable man donned the respectable attire of an insurance executive, climbing steadily to the position of Vice President at a Hartford insurance company. By night, he transformed into a poetic soul, his pen capturing truths that spreadsheets and actuarial tables could never contain. It was, by all accounts, an unusual pairing of vocations.

Picture him, if you will, walking the two miles between home and office each day, moving through the changing seasons with deliberate steps.

One imagines him collecting impressions like seeds to be planted later in the fertile soil of his poetry.

The park that stood across from his residence became something of a muse. Elizabeth Park unfolds over 100 magnificent acres, with formal gardens that would make any horticulturist swoon, meadows that dance with native grasses, immaculate lawns, practical greenhouses, and a serene pond that reflects the passing clouds. This verdant sanctuary inspired several of Stevens' most contemplative works, including Vacancy in the Park, The Plain Sense of Things, and Nuns Painting Water Lilies.

By 1950, the literary establishment could no longer overlook Stevens' extraordinary contributions, and he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his poetry.

One might say his literary garden had reached its full and glorious bloom.

And now, a morsel of gossip that might raise eyebrows in polite company: our refined poet once engaged in a physical altercation—yes, a proper fist-fight—with none other than Ernest Hemingway in Key West!

Imagine that, dear readers—the insurance executive and the bullish Hemingway, trading blows under the Florida sun.

Perhaps even poets, like certain plants, occasionally need to show their thorns.

As we mark this anniversary, perhaps the best tribute to Stevens is to wander through our own gardens with more attentive eyes, knowing that their beauty is all the more precious for being impermanent.