How funny that you would post this poem! Earlier this week I went down to hear Charles Baxter speak and he referenced this poem as part of his talk about happiness, specifically the difficulty in sustaining a character’s happiness through an extended narrative. He said that this poem, while it is about the speaker’s happiness, only comes about through negation—what he has but also what he doesn’t have, what’s there, but also what’s not there.

Thanks for another wonderful post!