{"id":916,"date":"2009-08-19T11:47:31","date_gmt":"2009-08-19T11:47:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meeseeks:5080\/blog\/?p=916"},"modified":"2009-08-19T11:47:31","modified_gmt":"2009-08-19T11:47:31","slug":"poem-13-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/poem-13-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today the poem is Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird<\/em>, by Wallace Stevens,\u00a0first published in 1917.\u00a0 I don’t know if Stevens had in mind the popular meaning of depression, aka the black bird\u00a0 – as, for example, in the 1926 song Bye, Bye Blackbird<\/em> (music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Mort Dixon).\u00a0 Viewing the meaning that way changes the poem from simple descriptions of nature to something more moving.<\/p>\n

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird<\/em>
\nI
\nAmong twenty snowy mountains,
\nThe only moving thing
\nWas the eye of the blackbird.
\nII
\nI was of three minds,
\nLike a tree
\nIn which there are three blackbirds.
\nIII
\nThe blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
\nIt was a small part of the pantomime.
\nIV
\nA man and a woman
\nAre one.
\nA man and a woman and a blackbird
\nAre one.
\nV
\nI do not know which to prefer,
\nThe beauty of inflections
\nOr the beauty of innuendoes,
\nThe blackbird whistling
\nOr just after.
\nVI
\nIcicles filled the long window
\nWith barbaric glass.
\nThe shadow of the blackbird
\nCrossed it, to and fro.
\nThe mood
\nTraced in the shadow
\nAn indecipherable cause.
\nVII
\nO thin men of Haddam,
\nWhy do you imagine golden birds?
\nDo you not see how the blackbird
\nWalks around the feet
\nOf the women about you?
\nVIII
\nI know noble accents
\nAnd lucid, inescapable rhythms;
\nBut I know, too,
\nThat the blackbird is involved
\nIn what I know.
\nIX
\nWhen the blackbird flew out of sight,
\nIt marked the edge
\nOf one of many circles.
\nX
\nAt the sight of blackbirds
\nFlying in a green light,
\nEven the bawds of euphony
\nWould cry out sharply.
\nXI
\nHe rode over Connecticut
\nIn a glass coach.
\nOnce, a fear pierced him,
\nIn that he mistook
\nThe shadow of his equipage
\nFor blackbirds.
\nXII
\nThe river is moving.
\nThe blackbird must be flying.
\nXIII
\nIt was evening all afternoon.
\nIt was snowing
\nAnd it was going to snow.
\nThe blackbird sat
\nIn the cedar-limbs.
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today the poem is Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens,\u00a0first published in 1917.\u00a0 I don’t know if Stevens had in mind the popular meaning of depression, aka the black bird\u00a0 – as, for example, in the 1926 song Bye, Bye Blackbird (music by Ray Henderson, lyrics by Mort Dixon).\u00a0 Viewing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","p1","y2009","m08","d19","h11"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vukutu.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}