Anecdote of the Jar

I think this poem is definitely up for interpretation. From what I've read about Wallace Stevens, he liked to his poems to be that way. He didn't like to give straightforward thoughts, but preferred to leave room for readers to think on their own.

After reading this many times it occurred to me that a jar does not belong on a hill or in the wilderness, whether it's in Tennessee or anywhere else. The poem says "It made the slovenly wilderness/ Surround that hill." I think this could be compared to industrialization and colonization and how fast putting one thing that is out of the ordinary (building, house, etc.) into a rural area can change that area. It makes the area become like that thing. Most likely, if you were to build a business in the middle of nowhere more people would start building next to you and the wilderness would become less and less: "And sprawled around it, no longer wild".  The poem also points out how much power man has over nature (wilderness). "It took dominion everywhere." Putting something man made in the middle of the wild gives the humans the upperhand. However, humans/or the man made thing ("jar") may have control but for now it will look out of place: "It did not give of bird or bush,/ Like nothing else in Tennessee."