[8] He had his first poem published at age 13 in the Waterville Morning Sentinel, a Maine newspaper.

[8] As a young man he enlisted in the U.S. Army in February 1946 for the duration of the war, plus six months.

[2] The United States Library of Congress contains a special collection of Stevens' works.

[3] He said he submitted his poems "haphazardly" over the years to publishers, being a contributor to The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Literary Review, Modern Age, The Post-Crescent, and other publications.

Under the name John Stevens Wade he translated Terrena Troubahi, by Paul De Vree (Ganglia Press) in 1960, Poems from the Lowlands (Small Pond) from the Dutch and Flemish in 1967,[2][21] Thirty-One New Poets (Schreiber (editor), Hill & Wang Pub, 1968, ISBN 0-8090-0090-3), Waterland: A Gathering from Holland (Holmgangers Press, 1977, translator from the Dutch),[2] and From the Flemish of Gaston Burssens (Arts End Books, 1982, ISBN 0-933292-11-2)[2] Subsequently, translating under the name C. J. Stevens, he translated One Score-And-Two Years of Uncommon Fanfare (John Edward Westburg (editor), Westburg Asso Pub, 1986, ISBN 0-87423-040-3), and collected and translated Poems from Holland and Belgium (John Wade, 1999, ISBN 1-882425-13-8).

Over his lifetime, Stevens had many jobs: as a farmer, deliveryman, selectman, and assistant manager at Carvel Hall, an Annapolis landmark.

[22] Stevens lived overseas for five years, two of those in the Netherlands, moving approximately every six months to countries including Ireland, England, Portugal, and Malta.

His biographies and other non-fiction are unusual, in that in all cases he had access to either the subject or to someone intimate with the subject–a wife, friend, lover, or mother.