Lines 10-26: "It has to be on that stage..." through end.
Summary
These lines of the poem move into a more complex and metaphorical mode, describing modern poetry's role and relationship with its audiences. Upon the "new stage" that modern poets must construct, poetry must be like an "insatiable actor"—Stevens continues the theater metaphor. As an actor, poetry must speak into the "ear of the mind," or the innermost sense of perception of its audiences, touching them profoundly with something they want to hear. The audience will listen less to the "play," or poem, and more to themselves, and their experience will be expressed as a kind of emotional union in which "two / Emotions becom[e] one"—meaning, most likely, that people are brought together emotionally.
The next long sentence takes the actor metaphor further, describing poetry as "A metaphysician in the dark" and also as a musician. Modern poetry is described as a musician who plucks "a wiry string," which, despite the simplicity of the instrument, has a powerful effect: any sounds passing through it attain immediate clarity and meaning. The end of that sentence re-emphasizes that this entire process occurs within the mind, and that this poetry should be capable of "wholly / Containing the mind"—i.e., it encompasses the mind and its thoughts.
After the broken line, Stevens returns to a more direct imperative mode: poetry must take part in the process of people finding "satisfaction." This satisfaction can come in many ordinary ways: the poet lists "a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman / Combing." The poem ends by reaffirming that modern poetry is the "act of the mind"—something created by and for the mind, to help give sense to things and uncover meaning.
Analysis
This section of the poem relies heavily on personification, as modern poetry is compared first to an actor, then as metaphysician and musician. The distinction between poetry and poet is blurred as a result: poetry itself is expected to take on an active, creative role in how it "speak[s]" to and touches audiences. Stevens' descriptors come together to create an odd tone of necessity and obligation: the actor (poetry) is "insatiable," suggesting that poetry must be driven on by an almost compulsive urge to affect the world. However, this urgency is balanced by the phrase "slowly and / With meditation," reflecting the dual nature of poetry as an urgent process of creation that also requires painstaking, patient effort.
The following idea, that poetry must repeat exactly "that which [its audience] wants to hear," is potentially troubling for poets' independent agency as creators. This confusion might be explained a bit by the following lines: if the goal is to get audiences to express emotions and reconcile them, then perhaps that is the most important part of giving audiences what they 'want to hear.' Undoubtedly, in this poem Stevens advances a theory of poetry a a form that fundamentally serves its audience, the public. This is a striking and unusual tone for a Modernist to take (in a manifesto on "modern poetry," no less), a movement that saw a great deal of reverence for the individual will of the artist.
The passage in which poetry is described as music—"twanging a wiry string"—may be a statement regarding the complexity of modern poetry, or lack thereof. In this image, a simple instrument is able to bestow pure "rightness" on its sounds, and becomes a sanctuary for the mind, perhaps more so than a complex instrumental arrangement could. Modern poetry as a genre saw the abandonment of many traditional rules of poetry, and unprecedented use of simple, raw imagery as well as deconstructed forms. In this poem in particular, Stevens uses no rhyme or fixed meter, and often uses simple, prose-like sentences—this section implicitly argues that this simplicity helps create the poem's potent impact. We can perhaps compare this to the speaker of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" recognizing that there is something more raw and vital in poetry than just the "noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms" of sound and language.
The men and women of the earlier lines return in the final tercet as exhibits of everyday actions that can bring satisfaction, and thus the poet ends by restating poetry's commitment to attending to the people and places of its surroundings.
