Thursday, April 27, 2006

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

Link

"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.

Monday, April 17, 2006

I know
that you're there
behind these words, thought
lines loose and lazy
I am

I love your unsewn
monster
raised on Milton
and whatever else available
the Bible

Speak nonsense
I don't care, rough marble

David will rise again, no doubt,
or I imperfect shall strip
named biblically
my child

set out on the hillside leading
growing hair
Absolam in his nonsense tree

I would change this
memo to a poem

or the maxim "we must accept
what we cannot change"
everything

we cannot change
(that's not the poem)

the wages of resignation
without acceptance
a poem

a song
a spiritual song from a hot field

silent, Heraclitus in the field goes out with joy

"bending back creates
a harmony like bow and lyre"
dear public river
parting around my foot
dear public sap-
ling bending from my
hand

bending back in the wind
only
notes in a deaf head

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Now, after you left

you catch me staring,
I admit I don't understand you
fast and hard like the city
yes, I'm provincial
my speech is not correct

so I will write
poor words like mothers and fathers
that you've left behind

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I apologize
I've never been a quick thinker
it takes time to make things strike with the weight they don't have
and shouldn't have. i feel lost in a light breeze.

I said hula hoops
were big in Japan, for instance
which was a broken link
a bro
ken link I mean
(I can't do this pop reference thing)

it takes time, and when you realize
the weight and importance of anything which might be
later made into...
to shake the world
and change trajectories like effects of stars

it takes time when you realize you might be misunderstood

you might forever not be known
and not know

Saturday, April 08, 2006

5. Grace

Friday, April 07, 2006

Possible reasons I'm still a believer:

1. Intellectual timidity
2. Fear of God
3. Pascal's wager
4. It's working out for me

Monday, April 03, 2006

dear philosophers
men and women of letters
artists, poets, prophets:

I would like
to commission you
to write me an Aeneid.
I have a son now

I love your former
iconoclasm and so forth
of course

but most of our images are broken
now anyway
we can start over
with how to be a good boy

let's face it
the youth need something
that smacks of duty
and not of killing the father