Wallace Stevens as the Accidental Winter Sports Marketing Guru

In 1921, Wallace Stevens published the poem The Snow Man, which uses beautiful crystalline imagery to depict a winter scene and a person that is perfectly comfortable and dare I say, at home in that winter environment. The cold of winter does not make this "snow man," recoil or run for a warm hearth, but quite the opposite. The snow man ventures purposefully with joy and awe "to behold the junipers shagged with ice."

Stevens wrote this poem during the age of Modernism, also during which time Einstein's Theory of Relativity argues that "time and space are dependent on human experience and that nothing is fixed and nothing is absolute." Stevens' poem and Einstein's theory meet at the intersection of human experience with time and space hanging in the balance of relativity. The experience of this person, the snow man, is primary; who is this person that loves the winter? Who ventures out into the frosty days with passion and dreams of what is possible? Enter Wallace Stevens, the winter sports marketing guru as visualized through a modern day winter sports commercial:

Outdoor sports company commercial script (audio is the complete Wallace Stevens poem The Snow Man):

Video	Audio
[fade in] CAMERA PANS A WINTER SCENE WITH UNBLEMISHED SNOW AND TALL PINE TREES WITH BOUGHS COVERED IN TUFTS OF SNOW. BRIGHT SUN WITH WIND CREATING EDDYS OF SNOW. [cut to] MAN STANDING FACE INTO THE SUN WITH EYES CLOSED, SMILING, WEARING A BACKPACKING PACK.	NARRATOR (Morgan Freeman): One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow
[cut to] DETERMINED WOMAN WEARING A HARNESS HOOKS AN ICE SPIKE INTO A MASSIVE WALL OF ICE HUNDREDS OF FEET ABOVE THE GROUND WITH A MASSIVE SMILE ON HER FACE. SHE CONTINUES UP THE ICE WALL. [pans to a wider view of the icy forest backdrop]	NARRATOR( Morgan Freeman): and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice, the spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun
[cut to] AN ULTRA MARATHON TRAIL RUNNER WEARING A HEADLAMP, WATERPROOF RUNNING JACKET, RUNNING VEST, COMPRESSION RUNNING TIGHTS AND MUDDY TRAIL SHOES MAKES THEIR WAY UP A SNOW ADDLED MOUNTAIN TRAIL WITH THE ONLY LIGHT COMING FROM THE HEADLAMP.	NARRATOR (Morgan Freeman): and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves
[cut to] A SHERPA LOADED UP WITH AN UNIMAGINABLE AMOUNT OF GEAR CLIMBS SEEMINGLY EFFORTLESSLY UP TO THE TOP OF MOUNT EVEREST AND STOPS ONCE AT THE TOP TAKING A DEEP BREATH AND INHALING THE MOMENT. [pans out drone style taking in the entire scene and capturing the scene from 360 degrees before fading out]	NARRATOR (Morgan Freeman): Which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place for the listener who listens in the snow, and, nothing himself beholds nothing that is not there

By creating a commercial with Steven's words we are able to visualize the idea of not only perseverance through the cold but the idea of running into that cold as though you can't survive without it. The cold may be actual or metaphorical and the way we handle it is based on the perspective from which we approach. I hope you joyfully enter this winter season with the glee of a skier at the sight of new snow!

‌

https://Brightspace.com, 2023, csuedu.brightspace.com/content/enforced/26925-17570.202410/Modernism-2-1.ppt?_&d2lSessionVal=j3fAYZDpwosbsJ11xZnbDGSKU&ou=26925. Accessed 28 Nov. 2023.