Stevens said, “This group of poems is not meant to be a collection of epigrams or ideas, but of sensations” (L 251). So don’t worry about trying to figure out what the blackbird “means.” It doesn’t have one meaning. Instead, ask yourself how each episode makes you feel. We look at life from many different perspectives.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
by Wallace Stevens
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.
—— ————————
Glossary
pantomime (III): a drama using only actions and gestures, without words
inflections (V): changes in tone or pitch of the voice
innuendoes (V): subtle suggestions; insinuations
indecipherable (VI): unclear in meaning
lucid (VIII): clear, easily understood
bawds (X): people who engage in crude, inappropriate behavior
euphony (X): pleasing sounds
equipage (XI): a carriage with horses
Wallace Stevens, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" from Harmonium. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Public domain.)