Notes toward a criticism of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird."

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

I can't ever remember being of three minds. It's hard enough to be of two minds, or even one. The poet is either a liar or has transcendent intellect.

"like a tree"

does the simile compare the poet to a tree, or the state of being in three minds? are the blackbirds other poems he is thinking about? how could he think of three poems at once? he is of transcendent mind. or, the blackbird-poems are all similar enough that he is only thinking of one other poem with three parts, each having a correlative in one of his minds. the tree feeds itself, but not the blackbirds.

"the river is moving,/ the blackbird must be flying."

once we have established that the blackbird represents William Carlos Williams in the context of Stevens' perception of him as alter-ego, we ask, does the river moving constitute an allusion to Heraclitus or Proust? Either would be in good taste. there is a possible interpretation in poor taste, but we won't mention it.

mention Stevens was involved in insurance, republican, estranged from wife, may possibly have had affair with Cuban poet.

difficulty of reconstructing logic of this stanza demonstrates Stevens' remarkable intellectual powers. would any of us have realized a river moving means a blackbird, somewhere, is flying. Stevens' conviction is touching, perhaps the main point of this poem. mention Stevens' ability to sit for long while in attic alone.

"It was evening all afternoon."

this is a stupid line, and starts a ridiculous closing stanza. "the shadow of his equipage," indeed.