On Learning that Wallace Stevens Was A Jerk

Jerk is the polite word for it, I think.  I haven't read the autobiography yet, which I plan to do, assuming the Portland library has it.  No reason for that to stop me from making my general point, which is: does it matter?  First, it matters to me, a little.  Stevens is one of my favorite poets.  Sunday Morning.  Gubbinal.  The Idea of Order at Key West.  The Poems of Our Climate.  The Man With the Blue Guitar.  Learning recently that he was an office tyrant and a messy drunk who picked fights with Auden and Hemingway dims my appreciation of what I identify as the essential spiritual element in his poetry.  What lifts his poetry from abstraction is what it aims at, a place where beauty matters more than anything.  Picking a fight with Auden?  Second, it probably shouldn't matter.  I don't need a hero.  I need great poetry to inform me and lift me and inspire me.  Messy drunks don't bother me so much.  I've known a "few", most of whom I've loved deeply. But, mean to his subordinates?  Inexcusable. Still, the poetry.  One must have a mind of winter