Upon first glancing at the title, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird”, I assumed the poem would take the format of a single individual providing some set of instructions to an audience. However, the speaker of the poem is not obvious nor clearly stated. The difficulty in this poem for me lies within the format. There are 13 sections, some from a first-person point of view and others taking a more descriptive and distant stance, bearing a unique voice. However, all thirteen sections related the blackbird to some idea or concept. Overall, the poem was not instructional like I assumed, but rather geared toward highlighting the distinctive quality of blackbirds.
The first section was fairly easy to comprehend. Stevens contrasts white snow with the distinctiveness of a blackbird in color and movement. Yet, SectionII already elicited confusion, as the poem shifted to an abstract perspective. Although the syntax is almost rhythmic and straightforward in nature, it deals with abstract ideas. The speaker compares the blackbird to his own mind, similar to section IV where the blackbird is no longer a physical being, but an entity that is one with man and woman. Among sections I to IV, there is an alternation between the classic, natural description of a blackbird and a metaphysical interpretation. These first five sections jump around so much, that it’s almost difficult to keep up with the poem’s train of thought. In V, there is no strict perception of a blackbird, which creates confusion in the audience, as even the speaker himself is confused, directly stating “I don’t know” in regards to what he finds most beautiful.
At this point, I had to ask myself: is there one speaker? Or are there multiple? After, all, there is a shift when the poem moves from the perspective of “I’ to that of the “thin men” to “he”, and finally back to “the blackbird”. The poem has a very unique structure, being split into 13 sections–although these sections don’t necessarily follow a linear progression. Rather than
ways of “looking” at a blackbird, these sections seem to outline methods of interpretation as the blackbird is consistently referred to as some small part of a grander scheme.
Although there is no clear rhyme scheme, words repeat themselves frequently within sections, such as “know” in VIII, glass, snow, and, of course, the blackbird. However, they often appear randomly and surprised me. In section VI, stevens seems to shift, creating achilling, tough, and fleeting emotion. He describes glass (which is usually perceived as delicate and fragile) as being “barbaric”. This was confusing since it isn’t a description of beauty but rather one of fear. Barbaric can mean cruel but also uncivilized, and this barbaric ice is said to reflect the blackbird’s shadow. What seemed to be happening in my mind is that the blackbird might be a symbol of beauty, but its shadow is not. I didn’t understand why Stevens would jump between feelings of wonderment to feelings of fear when portraying the nature of the blackbird. Then, I was taken aback by the shift in VII, which was written as though the audience was the “thin men of Haddam” since the section asks them a direct question. The tone shifts, shedding its poetic nature to bear accusations.
Then, Stevens surprised me once again. The shadow of the blackbird was painted with uncertainty, yet in section VIII, he keeps saying “know”, even following “know” with “noble” to emphasize this word. Now, he is shifting to a reassuring, confident tone, which made me think that perhaps one speaker can have multiple perspectives.
In section X, I was confused about the green light, a concept that was randomly brought up and vague. What exactly does it mean? Is it a symbol for something else, or is it literal? I initially interpreted it as the aurora lights, but perhaps it is a symbol for something else. Once again, glass is repeated in section XI, shifting back to fright and comparing glass and shadows once more. How come Stevens is repeating this again? Sections VI and XI seem similar, but based on the title, I’d assume there would be 13 distinct ways of looking at a blackbird.
Section XII starts with “The river is moving”. I stopped and thought about what the connection between the movement of a blackbird and the movement of a river could be, believing that perhaps the river moving is the shadow of the blackbird gliding over the water. The ending creates the idea of something eternal, which is difficult to interpret because, in the rest of the poem, the blackbird is often fleeting. Yet in the last section, it says that “It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow”, which makes the blackbird appear to be a constant.
Although the language inherently wasn’t confusing, the way phrases were organized made the poem difficult to interpret. This poem does not take the traditional linear format. I believe it is rather an amalgamation of thoughts about the blackbird that serves as a representation of other insights and emotions.
Sruthi, I absolutely loved the poem that you chose. The idea of an entire poem based on one type of bird and the different ways it is perceived in the world is such a cool concept. I feel like a lot of poems use intangible concepts to represent more complex intangible concepts, but a bird is such a creative symbol. During my first read through, I didn’t realize each verse was kind of its own separate story, and I tried to piece them all together into one thing, when it definitely makes sense for them to be treated as separate-ish. I really liked how you focused on each stanza as a separate entity, but also the connections between them, like the way that Stevens subverts the traditional view of “glass” in different stanzas. I thought your point about the different speakers of each stanza was really important, too. It was hard to identify the speaker of each stanza, especially IV, VII, and XIII. It was also hard to figure out any sort of central overarching theme for this poem because each stanza’s ideas are so varied. Overall, I thought your analysis on the format and diction was really in-depth and knowledgeable.
Hi Sruthi! When I was scrolling through everyone’s difficulty essays, I was really drawn to the poem you chose, and I enjoyed reading about how you interpreted the various sections. I really like how the seemingly simple image of a blackbird becomes a really mutable and more abstract concept over the course of the poem. The short stanzas, often broken into lines composed of only a few words, create the sensation of a series of images flashing across a screen — a world of experiences distilled into fleeting feelings.
I thought what you pointed out about the speaker being unclear and the perspective shifting was really important — the stanzas vary in perspective, from a first-person narration (“I do not know which to prefer”) to an almost “zoomed-out” omniscient third-person style (“He rode over Connecticut in a glass coach”). This seems to fit quite well with the idea of “ways of looking” at a blackbird, but even beyond that, with the idea that each person might perceive the same image completely differently, and that there is no one correct worldview or perception of the truth.
It seems fitting, somehow, that in the thirteenth and final stanza, the blackbird is once again simply just a bird sitting “in the cedar-limbs” — and yet the reader now carries an understanding that it is so much more.