Speech by Wallace Stevens upon accepting
an honorary degree from Bard College in 1951—
Transcription of conclusion:
"In all his poems with all their enchantments
for the poet himself, there is the final enchantment
that they are true. The significance of the poetic act
then is that it is evidence. It is instance and illustration.
It is an illumination of a surface,
the movement of a self in the rock.
Above all it is a new engagement with life.
It is that miracle to which the true faith of the poet
attaches itself."
— Wallace Stevens at Bard College, March 30, 1951