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There are some curious and probably relevant specific details about him. His wife had been a model for Miss Liberty, the head on the U.S. dime. He was fat, but fought it. He accepted routine, arriving at his desk at 8:15. He composed many poems on long walks, wrote them in a microscopic hand and, arriving at the office, gave them to his Miss Flynn to type. On Sunday he usually made a dinner of cold shrimps and celery. He was steeped in European culture, but not tempted to become an expatriate. He said: "It gives a man character as a poet to have a daily contact with a job. I doubt whether I ve lost a thing by leading an exceedingly regular and disciplined life." Again, he said: "Poetry and surety claims are not as unlikely a combination as they seem. There is nothing perfunctory about them, for each case is different." Stevens' life, as poet and lawyer and vice president, was to order the differences and the resemblances and the analogies. He was the American poet of shapes, and in the turmoil of his time there could be no more appropriate obsession for an American.