{"product_id":"his-only-merit-benjamin-green-9798899901904","title":"His Only Merit","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen I finished compiling poems for my collection entitled \u003cem\u003eOld Man Looking through a Window at Night, \u003c\/em\u003e I thought I was done writing poetry. After all, it had taken twenty-six years to collect enough work for another full-length collection. I was sixty-six years old; there did not seem time enough to gather poems for another book.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThen, I read \u003cem\u003eThe Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens, \u003c\/em\u003ethe 1954 Knopf edition. Immediately, I started writing responses to the work. Some of the reactions became \"after\" poems; some of the writing sounded like a reply. I conversed with Stevens' poetry, and I conversed with Stevens, the man. Sometimes we argued; sometimes we agreed. Within a month, I had nineteen poems-this chapbook.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe nineteen poems allowed me to acknowledge Stevens' influence as a modern poet using my landscape--a high desert canyon in New Mexico--as the setting. The language is mine; the vocabulary is mine (even if Stevens' work prodded me toward intellectual abstraction).Reading Stevens produced nineteen poems, definitely un-modern, the true work of a spiritual introvert living under a ribbon of sky between steep walls of rock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Benjamin Green\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798899901904\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Finishing Line Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/30\/2025\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 34\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.11lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.08d","brand":"Benjamin Green","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48440595087615,"sku":"9798899901904","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_e85757e7-14c0-4dfb-a793-6f5a3af8adf2.jpg?v=1777183493","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/his-only-merit-benjamin-green-9798899901904","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}