13 Isn't Always Bad Luck

Certainly my favorite Stevens poem, and one of my favorites of the modern era, is "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." What initially drew me to this poem, aside from the 14 brilliant pictures it paints (one per stanza + one overall), was the fact that I could not duplicate it. No matter what the subject, I would always end up describing it, which is not at all what Stevens has done with his blackbird. Instead of a meditation on truth and perspective, I'd invariably end up with 13 lame to semi-lame descriptions of _____. I still try now and then. And, though I'll never fool myself into thinking I could put on paper anything close to the genius of Wallace Stevens, I'd like to believe that a more mature perspective and a deeper understanding of the poet and poem, would bridge the gap somewhat between my knock off and his original.
In spite of the title, this poem is not so much about a blackbird as it is about everything in relation to the blackbird. In each stanza, the bird is the focus upon which each reader perceives the given landscape. Since each reader will perceive and subsequently define each scene (stanza) differently, there are not just 13, but an infinite number of unique perceptions. Since each interpretation is true to each reader, there are an infinite number of truths. If we remember "The Snow Man," the implication would be that there is no real truth because every individual perspective is true. Somehow I equate this with the man who has "a mind of winter" and eventually becomes one with winter. Once he is no longer perceiving the winter scene, but belongs to it, it must cease to exist. Does that make any sense? It's quite hard to articulate properly.
On a less brain crunching note, I enjoy the flow of the poem. Not rhythmically, as any consistent rhyme or meter doesn't appear here. The poem moves well as we encounter the blackbird on its journey between the bookends of stanzas I and XIII. Although this is a "cold" poem throughout, only these two stanzas mention snow: "among twenty snowy mountains," (I) and "it was snowing and it was going to snow," (XIII). Also, these are the only scenes in which the blackbird is truly still. In stanzas III, VI, IX, X, XI, and XII it is flying or, in the case of XI, the suggestion of flight. In VII it is walking; and in V it is whistling. Stanzas II, IV, and VIII are like rest stops along the way. While technically there is no movement by the blackbird, these are like glimpses into the mind of the creator, and are different from the remaining stanzas.
I think V is the most telling section of this poem. I think this stanza conveys one of Stevens' philosophies, the distinction between what is heard and the implications of what the sound becomes after it is heard, "the blackbird whistling, or just after." When applied to poetry, I believe Stevens was fascinated with the transformation his words took from being put on the page to being taken in by the reader. Any poem is forever altered once it is encountered by even one reader. Maybe Stevens could never decide which he preferred, the act of creation or the echo of his creation in the minds of the reader.
One last thing! Of course I have to add my pop culture reference. In 1998, Pearl Jam released the album Yield, which contains a song called "Low Light," written by bassist Jeff Ament. When I heard this song, stanza XIII from "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" came immediately to mind, even though the last time I read it was about four years earlier in college. To me this song (musically more than lyrically) captured the mood of stanza XIII. Check it out and see if you agree or not.

Is Morrissey Today's Prufrock?

I relate almost everything I encounter in my reading to music or movies. This is in no way forced. All my life my retention for song lyrics and movie dialogue has been uncanny; which is remarkable considering the volume of each I have digested over the years. (Yet somehow I can't remember phone numbers I use pretty regularly without looking them up.) When reading a poem, for example, at some point a lyric or a scene pops into my head that I associate with the overall theme, or with the events of a specific portion of the work. This was the case with Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
I'm specifically referring to the four stanzas that run from line 37 to line 69. Unitl this point, Prufrock has been on his way to a tea, and is using his description of the city to describe himself and his feelings toward the event to which he is going. "Etherised" (line 3) means numb and detached. "Certain" (line 4), "muttering" (line 5), "restless" and "cheap" (line 6), "tedious" (line 8), and "overwhelming" (line 10) are all straightforward in their meaning. Taken as a group, these words paint a picture of an anxious, confused, and when placed in the larger context of the city, disillusioned man.
The stanza contained in lines 37-48 has Prufrock hesitating to enter the tea, wondering "Do I dare?" (line 38). He is either truely self-conscious and worried about what the women will think of him, or he is using that as a possible excuse to bail out. It's important that he asks "Do I dare Disturb the universe?" (lines 46-47), as this tells us how small and insignificant he feels in relation to the women and the tea.
We learn in the following stanza (lines 49-54) that he has in fact been to many such teas before. That he has in fact "measured out [his] life with coffee spoons" (line 51). In the next two stanzas Prufrock admits that he is also very familiar with these women. I think he means not the specific women that are at this tea, but the type of woman one would typically encounter at such an event. If it was the same group of women over and over, I don't think he would feel like an insect being examined as he describes in line 57, "formulated, sprawling on a pin." He doesn't know how to approach or speak to a woman when he feels this way. He continually asks himself "how should I presume?"
At this point a lyric from a song by the Smiths exploded into my head, that to me, encapsulates this entire portion of the poem:

"There's a club, if you'd like to go

You could meet somebody who really loves you

So you go, and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home, and you cry

And you want to die."

This is from the song "How Soon is Now?" written in 1984 by Morrissey (lyric) and Johnny Marr (music) of The Smiths.
From here, other apparent similarities between the song and the poem come to light. Prufrock continues his mental debate on whether or not he should dare to speak (line 80). He never summons the courage and laments in line 84, "I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker." This sentiment is echoed by Morrissey in the subsequent lyric:

"See I've already waited too long

And all my hope is gone."

Neither Prufrock nor Morrissey's unnamed protagonist is able to overcome his shyness and lack of self-worth. Prufrock, after leaving the tea, through his continued inner monologue, tries to justify his lack of action by questioning if it would have been worth it to engage that world and those women. This starts on line 87 with "And would it have been worth it after all," and continues through the break at line 110. Here he appropriately compares himself to the most famous man of non-action in literary history, Hamlet. He claims he's not like Hamlet, and lists all the things that he (thinks he) is to proove it to himself (lines 112-119). Prufrock is right, he's not like Hamlet; but not for the reason he thinks. Hamlet finally did something. Prufrock never manages to escape from his own head.
I would love to be able to say that Morrissey had this poem in mind as he wrote "How Soon is Now?" and it is possible, as he is very well read. In fact he references a line from a different Eliot in the same song. The opening verse stems from a line in George Eliot's Middlemarch: "to be born the son of a Middlemarch manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular." (Thanks to Simon Goddard and his great 2004 book The Smiths - Songs That Saved Your Life for that information.) Alas, I will always have the pleasure of linking one of the greatest poems of American letters with one of the greatest songs and the most intriguing and offbeat wordsmiths of my genreration.

Can One Draw a Poem?

I know we're not supposed to address poems that were discussed in class, but hey, I'm a rebel. This is relating to the E. A. Robinson poem "Miniver Cheevy." I was immediately drawn to the oddity of the short (five syllable) final line of each quatrain. Then it occured to me that as a result of this, I was able to assign shape to this poem. If I put the book down and look at it from a slight distance, each stanza looks like a funnel. On top of that, if I read the poem aloud, rhythmically each stanza sounds like a funnel. Now comes the coolest part! As I read the poem, the content follows the funnel pattern too. The events or thoughts of each quatrain dwindle to an abrupt end and filter into the next, where a tangent or temporally successive thought begins. For example, stanza two describes his nostalgia for the "days of old" and how thoughts of knights with swords on horses would "set him dancing." The next stanza picks up with that thought turned into saddness because it is not reality for him. The stanza ends with Miniver Cheevy now dreaming of ancient Greece and Camelot. This channels into the next stanza where he mourns the loss of courtly romance and chivalry that were representative of the times and places he was just dreaming of.
Or, It could all just be visual and auditory halucinations from the fever that's currently cooking my brain. I guess time will tell.

Parting Words for Walt

Since I don't have a time machine (yet), I cannot answer the question that intrigues me most about Whitman. Who is the real person behind the work? There is the egocentric, testosterone laden "I" that is the speaker in many poems. Biographers suggest that this was a persona that Whitman used to express himself through his writing. It was presented to us in class that Whitman was, in reality, not that "I." This is not uncommon in the world of literature, and I have no reason to challenge that perspective. What I really want to know is this: was he a jerk (for lack of a better term), who knew what he was, who kept that part of his personality at bay, and let it out in his poems? Or, was he introspective, and closed off emotionally; so he created the bravado persona to live a life that he wasn't living through the poet "I?" Reading the poems, one could argue either way. When I read "Song of Myself" or even the opening lines of "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry," I thought that no man could be so haughty (I am the water below, I am the sun), and not be that way every moment of the day. Then I look at "I Saw in Louisianna a Live-Oak Growing," and I see a man desperate in the thought of being alone. That lonliness does not jive with an arrogant egomaniac.
Our substitute Dr. Nicosia - Dr. Nicosia - said that Whitman never had a personal (physical) relationship with anyone, male or female. I vocalized my disagreement, again citing the poem "When I Heard at the Close of the Day." It is my contention that no poet, no matter how good he or she is, can write a poem like that without the personal experience. The first thing we're taught as writers is to "write what we know." For the sake of argument, let's say that Whitman based this poem on nothing more than fantasy. Possibly the pressure of society's norms was the impetus for this work. "This will make people think I've had close relatinships," might have been Whitman's thinking. If so, then why make his lover a man? It makes no sense, as that would invoke a worse reaction from "normal" society than not having a lover at all. Maybe for me, thinking that Whitman had a secret life that was opposite what he gave us in his poetry, makes his poetry that much more more interesting.