Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird
Jan. 22nd, 2006 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynUpon advice, instead of fretting about anonymous blogs and other such things that make me think dark thoughts about the world, I have decided to put up something that makes me happy.
This is my favourite poem in the world. I read it first when I was 16, in my A level English Lit class and I've really loved it ever since. I think I've quoted it at people before, but have never been able to find it online. I have, therefore, hunted out the book it is in, and am now typing it up.
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains.
The only moving thing.
Was the eye of the blackbirds.
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 innuendoes.
Or 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 woman around 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
Wallace Stevens
I love the long, slow circle of it, moving from the image of a motion of motionless, of great space to another image of motionless of landscape. It is as if the entire poem could be viewed from the eye of one rapidly flying creature, flying over a series of images and glimpses of stories.
I love the shortness, the scrappiness, the way it puts so much in the hands of the reader - this poem really is about a dozen different things, and leaves my imagination bright and active.
And it features black birds. Maybe not ravens, but still...
What more could a girl want?
p.s - the user icon used here is a Quentin Blake sketch of a raven called Mortimer. I am aware it looks like a splotch with flowers, but it is the best sketch of Mortimer I could find, and as he is deeply cool, I felt I needed it in my life.
This is my favourite poem in the world. I read it first when I was 16, in my A level English Lit class and I've really loved it ever since. I think I've quoted it at people before, but have never been able to find it online. I have, therefore, hunted out the book it is in, and am now typing it up.
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains.
The only moving thing.
Was the eye of the blackbirds.
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 innuendoes.
Or 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 woman around 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
Wallace Stevens
I love the long, slow circle of it, moving from the image of a motion of motionless, of great space to another image of motionless of landscape. It is as if the entire poem could be viewed from the eye of one rapidly flying creature, flying over a series of images and glimpses of stories.
I love the shortness, the scrappiness, the way it puts so much in the hands of the reader - this poem really is about a dozen different things, and leaves my imagination bright and active.
And it features black birds. Maybe not ravens, but still...
What more could a girl want?
p.s - the user icon used here is a Quentin Blake sketch of a raven called Mortimer. I am aware it looks like a splotch with flowers, but it is the best sketch of Mortimer I could find, and as he is deeply cool, I felt I needed it in my life.
