Rader has published widely in the field of twentieth-century American poetry and on Wallace Stevens in particular. In the following essay, he discusses Stevens' theme of desire and the power of poetry.

Wallace Stevens is a great poet because he is a poet of many themes. His poems interrogate the borders of reality and imagination, pose questions about presence and absence, dramatize the ongoing dialogue between the body and the mind, and search for a balance between intellect and emotion. Stevens desired both to write poems and reach a large number of people—two potentially mutually exclusive desires since few Americans read poetry. Desire is an important word for Stevens because the concept of desire may be his major theme. For Stevens, desire is the most human emotion. Everyone has desire. Everyone wants fame, love, fulfillment, closeness, happiness, good food, and a nice place to live. The...