Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Essay Questions

Does the poem suggest that there is a right way and a wrong way to write about blackbirds? If so, how does it show us what to do, and what not to do?

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" fulfills the promise in its title that the poem will not take one single, dominant perspective on the blackbird, but rather thirteen. The blackbird's variety of meanings throughout the poem is the central point of the poem, far more than any singular one of the emotions it evokes. The strongest implicit statement it makes on how to write about the blackbird is that we must have an open mind, be willing to change our minds and accept uncertainty, as the speaker does in section V: "I do not know which to prefer...The blackbird whistling / Or just after." According to the poem, the only wrong way to write about blackbirds is to not do so at all, by judging them uninteresting. This is the mistake made by the men of Haddam in section VII: they spend their time fantasizing instead of appreciating what is around them.

What are some ways that sentence or line structure emphasize the meaning of each stanza?

Each stanza is extremely condensed, usually containing only two or three images and a few connecting ideas. Therefore, syntax is a powerful tool in emphasizing what is significant in each stanza by opposing certain pairs of images, delaying or isolating certain phrases. Both of the first two stanzas employ a common technique: they are both three-line stanzas of a longer line, shorter line, longer line, and both create a powerful comparison between two images by balancing them out at the ends of the first and third lines. In stanza one, this syntax emphasizes the dynamic contrast between the "mountains" and the "blackbird;" in the next section, contrast becomes similarity between the "three minds" and "three blackbirds." Elsewhere, the poem highlights a binary pair in a stanza by simply making two lines nearly identical through chiasmus, as in "The beauty of inflections / Or the beauty of innuendoes."

At what points in the poem does the blackbird cause observers to be uncomfortable? What causes this negative reaction, and how do we make peace with it?

The first strongly negative mood surfaces in section VI, as the shadow of the blackbird flits back and forth across an icy window. The bird also causes the "bawds of euphony" to cry out later, perhaps in fear, and frightens the man in the glass coach. All of these stanzas have in common that the observer is not expecting the sight of the blackbird, or is otherwise unable to get a clear view on it. Elsewhere in the poem, the speaker makes meaning from the blackbird by putting it inside common natural scenes (I, III, XIII) or expressions of logic (II, IV, XII). However, when the blackbird appears as a shadow, or a startling sight, the observers do not know what to make of the blackbird, and cannot rationalize it or explain its meaning with symbolism. The poem implies that we can deal with this lack of certainty by recognizing that there will always be things in nature that we cannot explain neatly, even though they are involved in our lives (VIII).

How can one stanza sometimes provide clues to help analyze another stanza? Choose a detailed example.

Ideally, each stanza should be taken on its own terms before all else. However, comparison between two instances of a recurring theme can often highlight what a certain stanza might mean. For example, both sections II and IV fixate on the question of similarity and difference: in section II, the speaker seems to be mentally conflicted, but his "three minds" are described as a tree containing "three blackbirds"—it is unclear what is different among the three options. In section IV, another trio appears whose members are at once different and the same: "A man and a woman and a blackbird / Are one." If we read stanza IV with stanza II in mind, then we can guess that perhaps the man, woman, and blackbird are all parts of the same 'tree.' Thus, a possible message of the two stanzas combined is that we can see things both as separate entities and parts of a whole, all depending on what perspective we take: whether we only look at separate tree branches, or zoom out our view to include the trunk.

Is this one poem or thirteen? There is no right answer, but you can make an argument based on the overall progression of the thirteen sections.

There are many sections that could function as powerful individual poems. However, if this were truly a loose assortment of thirteen poems, then their order in the sequence would probably not matter. I argue that the order of the stanzas is the most powerful evidence for this being one, cohesive poem. Stanza I is uniquely effective as the introduction, as it greets our eye with the blackbird's eye, and executes a swift visual shift in perspective that makes us keenly aware of the act of looking — an awareness that is a crucial prerequisite for continuing the poem. There also seems to be an overall arc to the poem, in that it begins and ends with shorter, naturalist scenes, and packs its longest, most human-centric scenes into the middle. It moves from the mountains to the town, examines different types of human observers, and then moves back outside for the finale. The last two stanzas also seem vital for the ending of the sequence, as they are both endings of different types: XII raises the possibility of spring, and rebirth, and XIII settles into the approaching nightfall.