Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Themes

The complicated relationship between nature and culture is a frequent theme in Stevens's poetry. He believed that the mind imposes order on a chaotic world. But he also embraced chaos in poems like...

Time moves forward, backward, and in a circle in "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." It is set mostly in autumn and winter, and begins and ends on the image of a snowy landscape. As for the...

The blackbird is a very unconventional animal of which to be in awe. It's like being in raptures over a squirrel. You're like, "What's the big deal? It's a squirrel. We see them everyday." We have...

When you title your poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at [Something]," you're describing versions of reality pretty much by definition. Indeed, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is not so muc...

Choices occur at several levels of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." At the most general level, the reader has a choice of thirteen ways to look at a blackbird. Do you find one way more co...