Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens, of course, never had this exchange, but thinking about the ways the two poets approach movement reveals something important about what makes their poetry sing. One typical sensation-scape for Frost is a walk (or an occasional ride); equally, with Stevens, a speaker or poet is often standing or sitting still, when abrupt motion disturbs a carefully set equilibrium. Frost’s poetry is poetry of navigation; Stevens’ is that of disruption. Take not only “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” or “The Road Less Traveled,” but also “Directive,” “Desert Places,” or “Pea Brush.” What helps to organize these poems is the way movement lends itself to sensory and descriptive narrative. A walk is in this sense a model for a story; if this is a story of memory and sensation, then it is a perfect frame for a poem, whether a greater romantic lyric (Abrams) or a nocturne from John Milton onward (Miller). It is hard to paint descriptive poetry when the poet is sitting still (though not impossible in a lime-tree prison-bower). A walk, however, is more than a model for description. A walk is a model for memory. Indeed, narrative, autobiographical memory, and spatial memory are interconnected; human beings use many of the same brain structures to create and access these forms of memory (Burgess et al.). The brain encodes not just what happened but where we were when it happened, and the sequence of these events, because our ability to survive and thrive in the world around us is largely dependent on our ability to move within it (O’Regan and Noë). The haunting imagery of “Directive” captures this intimate linkage between motion and memory beautifully. The poem opens by invoking spaces and places that have become ruins:

中文翻译：

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史蒂文斯和弗罗斯特中的运动

当然，罗伯特弗罗斯特和华莱士史蒂文斯从未有过这种交流，但想想这两位诗人处理运动的方式，就会发现一些重要的东西，即是什么让他们的诗歌歌唱。Frost 的一种典型感觉景观是散步（或偶尔骑车）；同样，对于史蒂文斯，演讲者或诗人经常站着或坐着不动，突然的动作扰乱了精心设定的平衡。弗罗斯特的诗是航海诗；史蒂文斯的就是破坏。不仅包括“在下雪的夜晚在树林旁停留”或“人迹罕至的路”，还有“指令”、“沙漠之地”或“豌豆刷”。有助于组织这些诗歌的是运动赋予其感官和描述性叙事的方式。从这个意义上说，散步是故事的模型；如果这是一个关于记忆和感觉的故事，那么它就是一首诗的完美框架，无论是更浪漫的抒情诗（艾布拉姆斯）还是约翰·弥尔顿（Miller）之后的夜曲。当诗人坐着不动时（尽管在椴树监狱凉亭中并非不可能），很难描绘出描述性的诗歌。然而，步行不仅仅是描述的模型。步行是记忆的模型。事实上，叙事、自传记忆和空间记忆是相互关联的。人类使用许多相同的大脑结构来创建和访问这些形式的记忆（Burgess 等人）。大脑不仅对发生的事情进行编码，还对发生时我们所处的位置以及这些事件的顺序进行编码，因为我们在周围世界中生存和繁荣的能力在很大程度上取决于我们在其中移动的能力（O'Regan 和 Noë ）。“指令”的令人难以忘怀的图像精美地捕捉到了运动和记忆之间的这种亲密联系。