I placed a jar in Tennessee

Funny the things you stumble upon:

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.

By Wallace Stevens

I got here because a former Valparaiso University professor showed up in my Google Alerts: “Clarkson University’s John Serio Publishes Fifth Book on Noted Poet”

More on the poem here.