"Bantams in Pine-Woods" is a poem from Wallace Stevens's first book of poetry, Harmonium. It was first published in 1922 in the poetry journal Dial, along with five other poems, all under the title "Revue."^[1] It is in the public domain.^[2]

This poem can be read as a declaration of independence for American poetry. The new world's "inchling" poets^[3] are defiant towards the traditional literary canon, and particularly defiant against the unnamed, arrogant, self-appointed gatekeeper of literary tradition; they are confident instead in their own free powers of innovation in the New World. The poem can be compared to "The Paltry Nude Starts on a Spring Voyage" on Helen Vendler's interpretation of it as an expression of confidence in new American art. In this reading, Chieftain Iffucan represents the canon, making a claim of universality and a privileged access to inspiration that is challenged by the Appalachian inchlings. The richness of tradition is conceded ("Fat!...."), but it is then relativized ("Your world is you").

• Buttel, Robert. Wallace Stevens: The Making of Harmonium. 1967: Princeton University Press.
• Vendler, Helen. On Extended Wings. 1969: Harvard University Press.
• Cook, Eleanor. A Reader's Guide to Wallace Stevens. 2007: Princeton University Press.