This collection of the work of one of the greatest modern poets was first published in America in 1954. The Collected Poems was prepared by Stevens himself, shortly before his death, and contains all of his published books of poetry, covering more than four decades: from the brilliant rococo lyrics of Harmonium, through the large-scale orchestrations of his middle years, to the magnificent austere lyrics of ''The Rock'', which first appeared in the Collected Poems, Stevens''s poetry meditated unremittingly upon the relation between the world and the imagination.
''He seems to me - and sems to my readers, I am sure - one of the true poets of our century, someone whom the world will keep on reading just as it keeps on listening to Vivaldi or Scarlatti, looking at Tiepolo or Poussin. His best poems are the poetry of a man fully human - of someone sympathetic, magnanimous, both brightly and deeply intelligent; the poems see, feel, and think with equal success; they treat with mastery that part of existence which allows of mastery, and experience the rest of it with awe or sadness or delight.'' - Randall Jarrell, Poetry and the Age
''One of the most considerable poets of the last hundred years...Poems that are as distinguished as any written in this century.'' - Thom Gunn, London Magazine