Difficult Ornaments

Abstract

Difficult Ornaments is a book about six twentieth-century American poets, the mythical Florida they explored, and the American tropical style they created. Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, and Harry Mathews compose a chain of friendship and influence. Only Laura Riding Jackson stands apart as a poet who renounced poetry and became a recluse on a citrus farm. In proximity to the tropics—nature’s own laboratory of invention and experiment—their poetry became more fecund and experimental. The ornaments of poetry correspond to the ornaments of nature, which is why the peacock, that most decorated of birds, features so prominently in their work. These seven essays comprise a lyrical meditation on literary style that ranges through history and myth to better understand the relationship between persons and places, weather and language, and the climate of the planet and the climate of the mind.