THE poetry of Wallace Stevens is famously obscure and not too popular with British readers; which is to say, his name is not mentioned much these days, which is a pity: because a case can be made that he wrote some of the finest verse of the past century.

The celebrated American poet, Mark Doty certainly thinks so; and on Tuesday he flew in from New York to explain why, at the Ledbury Poetry Festival.

Before the readings began, there was a meditation session with Maitreyabandhu of Poetry East, in a humid Burgage Hall: presumably to lay any anxiety about that famous Wallace Stevens obscurity.

As it transpired, the genial and thoughtful Doty let us off the hook, by explaining how Stevens worked his magic beyond the borders of the commonplace. An absolute understanding is not necessary, because the magic remains in the musicality of the lines and in the imagery, which inspires the imagination.

Doty said: "That kind of poetry can work against the ordinary. The image is irreducible."

One example he gave was Disillusionment of Ten O'clock, which ends: "Only, here and there, an old sailor,/ Drunk and asleep in his boots,/Catches tigers/In red weather."

Doty also said of Stevens' great mediation on existence, The Idea of Order at Key West: "The 20th century has nothing finer."

The are parallels, perhaps, between the careers of Stevens and Dylan Thomas: both considered obscure, both highly praised in their lifetimes and now often ignored, especially in the UK.

Doty helped to remind us that there is another way to write modern verse. Stepping beyond the everyday, it is still fine "to dream of baboons and periwinkles", and to write about them too.