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Inscrutable poet-of-ideas Wallace Stevens is a deepening favorite of mine. This, despite the fact that I don't always understand his poems. This, despite the fact that even when I think I might understand, the precision of a world glimpsed in a "jar from Tennessee" is not an easy thing to reconcile. Still, I never weary of my attempt to gather the enigmatic Stevens ever closer. These seven essays, which were "written to be spoken" (with the exception of one) and "intended to disclose definitions of poetry," are invigorating forays into the possibilities of imagination and the poetic form. Intrepid readers will find a dollhouse view of Stevens's poetics — and perhaps their own. An arbitrary suggestion: Start with the sixth essay, "Imagination as Value."