Barnhisel teaches American literature and has published articles on Ezra Pound and on the publishing industry. In this essay, he argues that "The Idea of Order atKey West" expresses Stevens' most deeply-held questions about the degree to which human perception organizes the world around the person doing the perceiving.

Along with "The Emperor of Ice-Cream," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," and "Sunday Morning," "The Idea of Order atKey West" is one of Wallace Stevens' best-known and most anthologized poems. Like many of his works, the poem takes place largely in the head of the narrator and is a meditation on the idea of thinking, on the process of perception, on the faculty of the imagination. From his earliest days as a poet until the end of his life, Stevens' most persistent concern remained the interaction of mind and world. Is...