thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird

13 ways of looking at a blackbird

This poem consists of thirteen parts. Each section could exist by itself as a poem but is used only as part of a whole.
The poem is Oriental in nature and approach. The title suggests a series of Eastern prints in which the blackbird is the subject. The bird and natural imagery in this poem are also used often in Oriental poetry. The terseness of speech, in which lines are pared down to the essential words, the ideas captured in short concise stanzas, suggest Japanese haiku; and the way which the structure becomes formal through the rise of conversational tone and personal observation contributes to giving the poem an Eastern style.

The first section begins with a landscape in which there is a blackbird. This appears to be a description of an Oriental print with its use of the landscape and the twenty snowy mountains being enveloped in snow. But there is movement; the eye of the blackbird is wandering over the scene. This stanza sets the stark feeling that permeates the rest of the poem, the feeling of death and nothingness and the clash of imagination versus reality that exists in most of Stevens poetry. Stevens believes the self/imagination is separated from the world/ reality. To be separated causes dismay because the self can never know the real world, but also can be a great delight. Through the division of self and the world , the power of the imagination comes into play. Stevens believed in the power of the self and the world and thought both were needed, but they should be balanced.
In Section II, the narrator hasn’t seen the blackbird, but has become aware of him. In this awareness, his consciousness has been tripled. At this moment,, blackbirds and tree are a completely different reality and independent from himself.
In Section III, the blackbird as ideas of death, imagination and reality whirling in the winds becomes juggled and jumbled in the narrator’s mind. This confusion comes with the new awareness of the ideas. The blackbird is part of the pantomime that is life.
Section IV deals with the idea of a main and a woman becoming one through love and the sexual act. This romantic concept is rejected in the next line with the blackbird intruding on the relationship. Death, reality and imagination will always be present with the person and cannot be rid of.
Section V is an example of Stevens’ perceiver/perceived idea. The narrator states he doesn’t know which to prefer, the inflections or innuendo, the whistling of the blackbird or just after. Stevens says that the reader can’t hear the “real” whistling of the blackbird. All one hears is the sound a fter it has entered the ear and has been relayed to the brain where it is converted into sound patterns that the mind “hears.” The blackbird whistling is the reality and the “just after” is our interpretation of the whistling. Also suggested by the “just after” is silence. After the blackbird has whistled, there remains the silence. This could be interpreted as death or as another reality opposed to the sound of the blackbird. The speaker is still unsure of what the ultimate imagination or reality is.
Section VI has the shadow of the blackbird crossing back and forth on an ice-coated window. The narrator sees hazily the ideas represented by the blackbird in the above sections, but the ideas remain cloudy in his mind. The shadow evokes a mood of death and a reality he doesn’t understand. He cannot see clearly as he will in other sections.
In Section VII, the speaker talks to the “thin men of Haddam.” He speaks out against the men trying to ignore the blackbird by seeing and using nothing but their imagination. They try to ignore knowledge of things and concepts that they have no wish to know about. This idea is extended and modified in Section VIII. The narrator knows the same things as the men of Haddam, but he is not “thin” like them. He realizes that the blackbird, death and reality, is involved in everything he knows. The speaker is now becoming more able to accept the blackbird and the ideas it represents.
In Section IX, the blackbird has flown out of sight, but the flying touches the circles of other people lives whether they realize it or not. The other circles are the narrator’s level of consciousness. The blackbird now permeates them on every level and is becoming part of the narrator’s psyche.
Section X shows the “bawds of euphony,” the people who seek pleasure in day to day reality ignoring things that are unpleasant. At the sight of a blackbird that is not even black, but tinted green by a green light, they cry out because they want nothing to upset their world, even the natural world of the blackbird. They prefer not having to think at all.
Section XI can be considered the climax of the poem. Throughout the poem, the only moving thing has been the blackbird and the winds in Section III, both examples of the natural world. Now the narrator is moving, riding a coach over Connecticut. For a moment he thought that perhaps the shadow of the coach was a blackbird, but this was only a momentary fear. The coach is glass; therefore, it will cast no shadow, but the shadow of himself. He is now the same as the blackbird. He has accepted the blackbird. This idea continues into Section XII. The river is flowing and therefore, by extension, the blackbird is flying. Both river and blackbird represent the natural world. The speaker reaffirms his acceptance of the blackbird and is content. There is no longer the fear of death or reality.
Section XIII refers back to Section I. There is the same snowy landscape, except this time the narrator sees the blackbird. “It was snowing/ and it was going to snow.” is another restatement of Section XII. The speaker is aware that the blackbird is there and will be there long after he is gone.

This poem deals with the ideas of death, nothingness, imagination, and reality as represented by the blackbird. Stevens’ ideas about the self, the world and the flux of emphasis changing from one to the other may appear jumbled to the reader, but anyone who looks at this poem must be prepared to spend some time with it and to deal with the confused thoughts wandering their mind. The poem needs to be read as a whole, not a linear progression. If the reader is prepared to do this, they will also see the blackbird.
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