In “Tea at the Palaz of Hoon” (ANTH 247), Stevens uses imagination to go beyond the confines of reality and create a sort of “haven” within his own mind. However, it does not seem to be an escape from reality, but more a search for one’s self, a philosophical and spiritual adventure within the imagination to reach a greater sense of one’s inner being. The speaker states that he is “not less” (line 1) because of his inner wanderings, but in fact finds some power in the workings of the mind and the things that can be created. He finds agency through this exploration of imagination and its powers, stating that “I was myself the compass of that sea” (9). The speaker is able to control and manipulate everything within his own mind, from the “golden ointment” to the “blowing hymns” (7-8). He concludes with the essential point of the journey, the “finding” of one’s self, and the realization of the power of imaginative creation.
There is, however, a sense of solitude and tension that undermines this revelation throughout the poem, expressing the possibility that all is not as it seems on the surface. For instance, this entire creative journey happens only within the speaker’s mind, and he never truly engages with reality. This could, perhaps, suggest a dependence on the imagination as a means of creativity, and a lack of interaction with reality, or even a disassociation with the real world. The speaker even concedes that others would consider such a deep mental exercise as “what you called / The loneliest air” (2-3), expressing the speaker as a loner, or one who is more comfortable in imaginary worlds than in the real one. On the other hand, throughout the poem he reaffirms that he is “not less” because of this, and seems to consider himself as stronger because he has such power of imagination and creation that others could not fathom.
At the end of the poem, however, the tension is revisited, when the speaker finds himself to be “more truly and more strange” (12). The strangeness of the line offers a hint of the earlier tension, and seems to both affirm and contradict the speaker’s final view of himself. He has reached a “truer” sense of who he is and what his mind is capable of, but the fact that he also finds himself to be “more strange” seems to suggest an oddness inherent within this solitary episode, that something is not entirely okay about delving so deeply into imagination and leaving reality behind. The speaker seems to feel both empowered and unsettled with himself, and it is difficult to understand whether his ingeniousness is something good or bad.
I really appreciate your attention to the way in which the “loneliest air” and that sense of the “strange” subtly tug at this poems confidence in the restorative powers of the imagination. “Strange,” etymologically, comes from the old French “estrange,” meaning external. So even if the poem carries that meaning of defamiliarization that modern art so often achieves, it is also, in this case, estranging. I am not able to resolve the tension you note here, but it is certainly where our attention should focus in this poem.