Wallace was an American Modernist poet known for his philosophical and meditative style. Some of his most famous poems are "The Emperor of Ice-Cream", "The Idea of Order at Key West", "Sunday Morning", and "The Snow Man". His poem "The Snow Man" uses three line stanzas in free verse to convey that one must have a certain mindset or perspective to observe the natural world during winter without thinking of misery, as the natural world is ultimately outside of human control but one's perspective of it is changeable.