I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
4 comments:
I've always been fascinated by Stevens's poetry. I think it's because I couldn't understand it, but it sounded like there was something interesting and mysterious behind it. The poem that most hooked me, oh so long ago, was this one, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. The stanza that most catches my eye right this minute is
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
I can imagine cool gusts of wind, perhaps in a forest, leaves blowing, and a bird being carried along.
I also like
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
It has a nice rhythm and makes a nice clean point, unlike some of the other stanzas which are a bit harder to wrap my mind around. (Like the "thin men of haddam" stanza.)
Anyway, just thought I'd throw that our there.
I enjoyed that poem, even if a bit "occultic" (blackbird and 13 are archetypes of occultic imagery or pseudo-occultic imagery).
I like:
It was evening all afternoon.
But I find this poem quite elusive. Stevens is using the blackbird the way he uses a glass jar in "I Placed a Jar in Tennessee" -- as a metaphor for multilayered thoughts and ideas. Some too philosophical and obscure for me to grasp.
In grad school we read Santayana, W. James and Emerson in copious quantities while studying Stevens. They were supposed to shed light on him but I don't remember them doing so.
I think he almost has to be enjoyed as a prankster.
The man and the woman are one.
The man and the woman and the blackbird are one.
I can enjoy that without knowing exactly what he means.
Prankster: yes indeed. I suppose another thing I like about Stevens is his humor. The whole set-up for the poem is humorous.
Also, I like what you said, La Misma, about the blackbird being a metaphor for many ideas at once. It really is not a solid metaphor that persists immutably throughout the poem, but rather takes on different meanings within the separate contexts.
As I'm reading this poem again today, the stanza
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
sticks out. The circle is the horizon, but only from our vantage point. If you stand elsewhere, you'll see another one of many circles.
In my youth I wrote a parody of this poem, called "Thirteen ways of looking at a toaster." One of the stanzas, which I'm not sure I recall completely accurately went something like:
The toaster filled the counter with crumbs.
The toast described a parabolic trajectory.
Another stanza went
During the hurricane,
I did not see
The toaster coming.
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