A Dish of Peaches in Russia
A Dish of Peaches in Russia - context Summary
Published in 1950
"A Dish of Peaches in Russia" appears in Wallace Stevens's 1950 collection The Auroras of Autumn. The poem pairs intense sensory detail—tasting peaches, sunlight, drifting curtains—with a shifting, displaced speaker who names himself "animal, Russian, exile." In the context of this late collection, it participates in Stevens's ongoing exploration of how perception, identity, and language intermingle to transform ordinary objects into charged, interior experiences.
Read Complete AnalysesWith my whole body I taste these peaches, I touch them and smell them. Who speaks? I absorb them as the Angevine Absorbs Anjou. I see them as a lover sees, As a young lover sees the first buds of spring And as the black Spaniard plays his guitar. Who speaks? But it must be that I, That animal, that Russian, that exile, for whom The bells of the chapel pullulate sounds at Heart. The peaches are large and round, Ah! and red; and they have peach fuzz, ah! They are full of juice and the skin is soft. They are full of the colors of my village And of fair weather, summer, dew, peace. The room is quiet where they are. The windows are open. The sunlight fills The curtains. Even the drifting of the curtains, Slight as it is, disturbs me. I did not know That such ferocities could tear One self from another, as these peaches do.
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