Thirteen Ways of Looking Poems

Using Wallace Steven's poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” as a model poem makes for an exciting exercise that really challenges students to look at things in new and different ways. Stevens’s poem (see excerpt below) focuses on a single subject and reexamines it in a series of imaginative leaps. Here are some of the different approaches Stevens uses:

• comparing and contrasting
• making plural and giving motion to
• suggesting the mysteries of a thing
• telling the story from multiple perspectives––taking on differing roles, positions, and personae
• using free association: making dream-like moves and images, moving around freely in time and space
• discovering the unseen beauty in things

Thirteen ways of seeing something is like having thirteen different subjects. Have the students imagine their object in many different places and roles. The common theme of the object (like the blackbird in Stevens’s poem) can tie together a very diverse collection of descriptions.

THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD (excerpt)

     I

Among twenty snowy mountains, 
The only moving thing 
Was the eye of the blackbird.

     II

I was of three minds, 
Like a tree 
In which there are three blackbirds.

     III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. 
It was a small part of the pantomime.

     IV

A man and a woman 
Are one. 
A man and a woman and a blackbird 
Are one.

     V

I do not know which to prefer, 
The beauty of inflections 
Or the beauty of innuendoes, 
The blackbird whistling 
Or just after.

     VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass. 
The shadow of the blackbird 
Crossed it, to and fro. 
The mood 
Traced in the shadow 
An indecipherable cause.

     VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet 
Of the women about you?

Wallace Stevens

 

SIX WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BUTTERFLY

1. Look up
2. Look down
3. Look on a flower
4. In a tree, on the ground
5. Turn around
6. Look at me.

Tessa Barsalou (2nd grade)

 

TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT A PIG

1. Sloppy
2. Dinner

Zeke Smith (6th grade)

 

FIVE WAYS OF LOOKING AT TIME

1. A never-ending dream
2. Traveling to the future and past
3. Holding still to fly
4. Nights of staring at the moon
5. Days of gazing into space.

Philip Gilpin (6th grade)

 

TEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A ZEBRA

1. When I look at a zebra, I get all dizzy.
2. If you go to the zoo, you’ll find trees, bushes, grass, and a zebra.
3. I wish I could take an apple to the zoo and feed it to the zebra, but you’re not allowed to feed the animals.
4. I want a pet zebra.
5. I would feed it hot porridge every morning.
6. I would give it spaghetti for lunch.
7. And a drumstick for dinner.
8. My family would move out of the house then my zebra would have its very own stable.
9. I would call her Emma.
10. And then it wouldn’t have to live in a zoo.

Julia Lee (2th grade)

 

THREE WAYS TO LOOK AT A RABBIT

One. A ferocious beast ruining
         gardens across America and 
         the rest of the world. Of 
         course, he eats gardens 
         to stay alive.
Two. A nice animal trying to
         stay alive of course he is
         ruining gardens all over
         America and the rest of the
         world.
Three. A nice beast trying to
         make a good but intimidating reputation for him
         in a world full of hunger and gardens.

Vaughn Sandman (5th grade)

 

EIGHT WAYS OF LOOKING AT LIFE

1. Swaying in the breeze a willow whips. Is it life?
2. Wouldn’t it be easier if I was a rock?
3.  
4. Watch TV. There go two lives
5. Peach through life
6. From head to toe
7. Spider to human
8. The ways of looking at life will always be through mind.

Penny Stenerson (7th grade)

 

TWELVE WAYS OF SEEING BLUEBIRDS

1. An outline of a bird in the sky but all you see is blue.
2. Blue in a tree? It must be a bluebird.
3. A pretty bird that doesn’t do any good.
4. A shadow on your face, but then it’s gone.
5. You ride along in the summer. A bluebird stands in the road.
6. The dentist’s office has a bluebird decoration.
7. The great state of Idaho has a great bird of blue.
8. I see a bluebird in some people’s eyes
9. Peeking out from the leaves a beak and blue faces.
10. Flying in the sky defiant of gravity and the sun is a bluebird.
11. Resting in a tree the bluebird closes his eyes.
12. Gliding through the air I am a bluebird too.

Jessica Dalrymple (7th grade)

 

TWENTY WAYS TO LOOK AT A HISTORY TEST

1. Upside down
2. in the air
3. in the snow
4. at midnight
5. underwater
6. in the dark
7. at school
8. all ripped up 
9. in the jungle
10. cross-eyed 
11. at three o’clock p.m.
12. while eating ice cream
13. with glasses on 
14. by a fire
15. while playing tag
16. while listening to music
17. while talking on the phone
18. while painting your nails
19. while watching TV
20. in someone else’s hands.

Misty Winteroud (7th grade)