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ananda

(30,820 posts)
Tue Apr 23, 2013, 10:52 AM Apr 2013

Wallace Stevens: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I came across this poem while teaching a class yesterday. It made me think of it as a kind of cohesive group of zen koans with the blackbird as a touchstone, or even as a placeholder for God, taking the reader higher and higher in levels of consciousness.

Then this morning as I was putting my backback in the car, I saw two blackbirds in the yard, one small and kind of drab looking, and the other a really beautiful blue-black one with a shiny coat walking towards me. It felt awesome having that poem in the back of my mind as I watched the two birds for a few seconds before going to work. See:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15746

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Wallace Stevens: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (Original Post) ananda Apr 2013 OP
Blackbird Tanka ananda May 2013 #1

ananda

(30,820 posts)
1. Blackbird Tanka
Wed May 1, 2013, 07:27 AM
May 2013

Daybreak at the car,
Two blackbirds walk in the yard,
one a drab background
to the larger shiny bird
of bardlore, a fourteenth look.


On Monday I came across WallaceStevens’ “Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird,” and the next morning I’m putting my backpack in the back seat of the car looking towards the front yard and what do I see but two black birds, the smaller one drab and unremarkable, but the larger one just glorious, with a blueblack sheen, well-made. It was definitely a tanka moment because it felt as though there was awareness on both sides of a new level of kismet and understanding in the light of my introduction to the Stevens poem the day before.
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