Tender Buttons [Apple]

Gertrude Stein

Apple plum, carpet steak, seed clam, colored wine, calm seen, cold cream, best shake, potato, potato and no no gold work with pet, a green seen is called bake and change sweet is bready, a little piece a little piece please.

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.

This poem is in the public domain.

About This Poem

“Tender Buttons [Apple]” was published in Tender Buttons (Claire Marie, 1914).

Click below to listen to an audio recording of Ann Lauterbach reading the poem on May 30, 2009, at The Strand Bookstore in New York City. From the Academy Audio Archive.

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, in 1874. She is the author of numerous books, including The Making of Americans (Albert & Charles Boni, 1926) and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1933). Stein died in 1946.

Poetry by Stein

Tender Buttons

(Dover Publications, 1997)

"The Soul selects her own Society (303)" by Emily Dickinson

"The Law of the Apple" by Edwin Torres

"Surprised by Joy" by William Wordsworth

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December 16, 2017