8 I/J 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

--This is a famous poem by Wallace Stevens that looks at one particular thing--in this case a Blackbird--thirteen different ways. Can you emulate this poem by writing one of your own with thirteen different stanzas? Each stanza should have a different perspective on a NYC related subject. Title your piece, "Thirteen ways of looking at a ____________."

Try it out. Even though you might not understand every stanza of Stevens' poem, challenge yourself to emulate the structure of his stanzas, his use of figurative language and his use of concise imagery.

These are some ideas that you may use to compose your own poem. However you are free to come up with an idea of your own as well:

13 Ways of Looking at New York City
13 Ways of Looking at the Lower East Side
13 Ways of Looking at New York City Garbage
13 Ways of Looking at Pigeons
13 Ways of Looking at New Yorkers
13 Ways of Looking at the Subway
13 Ways of Looking at NYC traffic
13 ways of Looking at Tompkins Square Park
13 Ways of Looking at Times Square
etc...

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
1
Among twenty snowy mountains
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

2
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

3
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

4
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

5
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes.
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

6

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.

7
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?

8
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

9
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

10
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

11
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

12
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be going.

13
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar limbs.