Hartford, Connecticut was the home of Wallace Stevens, one of America's greatest poets of the sublime. I have been devouring his collected works recently.
After an afternoon swim one day, twilight was descending. I was inspired to try a writing exercise I first learned in The Lyric in Fiction course at Columbia, taught by the wonderful Rene Steinke.
I rewrote Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Blackbird. I only have five ways, but I think they are enough for the moment.
Blackbirds Revisted, July 19, 2010.
XIII
It was storming all day.
It was thundering
And it was going to thunder.
The blackbird flew
Over the birch tree.
XII
The river is still
The blackbird must be resting.
XI
She rode to Connecticut
In a Greyhound bus.
Once, an audacious hope floated over her
In that she mistook
The shadow of her person
For blackbirds' wings.
X
At the sight of his words
Glinting, carved in stones
Even the skeptics of science
Would rejoice silently.
IX
When his poem spoke from
the flowers
It marked the intersection
of one of many streets.
