Editing Wallace Stevens (section)

===Travel===
Stevens made numerous visits to [[Key West]], Florida, between 1922 and 1940, usually staying at the Casa Marina hotel on the Atlantic Ocean. He first visited in January 1922, while on a business trip. "The place is a paradise," he wrote to Elsie, "midsummer weather, the sky brilliantly clear and intensely blue, the sea blue and green beyond what you have ever seen."<ref>Letters of Wallace Stevens, selected and edited by Holly Stevens</ref> Key West's influence on Stevens's poetry is evident in many of the poems published in his first two collections, ''Harmonium'' and ''Ideas of Order.''<ref>''The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens'': "O Florida, Venereal Soil," "The Idea of Order at Key West," "Farewell to Florida"</ref> In February 1935, Stevens encountered the poet [[Robert Frost]] at the Casa Marina. The two men argued, and Frost reported that Stevens had been drunk and acted inappropriately.<ref>[http://www.kwls.org/littoral/post_11/ The Trouble with Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens], an April 14, 2009, article from the website of the [[Key West Literary Seminar]]</ref> According to Mariani, Stevens often visited [[Speakeasy|speakeasies]] during Prohibition with both lawyer friends and poetry acquaintances.<ref>Mariani, Paul. ''The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens'' – April 5, 2016.</ref>

The following year, Stevens was in an altercation with [[Ernest Hemingway]] at a party at the Waddell Avenue home of a mutual acquaintance in Key West.<ref>[http://www.kwls.org/littoral/ernest_hemingway_knocked_walla/ Hemingway Knocked Wallace Stevens into a Puddle and Bragged About It], a March 20, 2008, article from the website of the [[Key West Literary Seminar]]</ref> Stevens broke his hand, apparently from hitting Hemingway's jaw, and was repeatedly knocked to the street by Hemingway. Stevens later apologized.<ref>''Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961'', ed. Carlos Baker</ref> Mariani relates this:

<blockquote>directly in front of Stevens was the very nemesis of his Imagination—the antipoet poet (Hemingway), the poet of extraordinary reality, as Stevens would later call him, which put him in the same category as that other antipoet, [[William Carlos Williams]], except that Hemingway was fifteen years younger and much faster than Williams, and far less friendly. So it began, with Stevens swinging at the bespectacled Hemingway, who seemed to weave like a shark, and Papa hitting him one-two and Stevens going down "spectacularly," as Hemingway would remember it, into a puddle of fresh rainwater.<ref>Paul Mariani. ''The Whole Harmonium''. Page 207.</ref></blockquote>

In 1940, Stevens made his final trip to Key West. Frost was at the Casa Marina again, and again the two men argued.<ref>''Robert Frost: A Life'', by Jay Parini</ref> According to Mariani, the exchange in Key West in February 1940 included the following comments:

{{blockquote|Stevens: Your poems are too academic.

Frost: Your poems are too executive.

Stevens: The trouble with you Robert, is that you write about subjects.

Frost: The trouble with you, Wallace, is that you write about bric-a-brac.<ref>Paul Mariani. ''The Whole Harmonium''. Caption to illustration #17, after page 212.</ref>}}