Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

“The Eagle” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1851)

While Stevens crafts multiple images of a blackbird, the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson creates a single image of an eagle. Like Stevens’s blackbirds and their landscapes, the eagle and its landscape threaten and hint at danger. Unlike the God-like blackbirds, the eagle, though ostensibly strong, appears vulnerable and more like the men in Haddam.

“The Snow Man” by Wallace Stevens (1921)

“The Snow Man” is another well-known Stevens poem from his Harmonium collection. While blackbirds play a key role in the title and in the poem, Stevens never explicitly mentions a snow man in “The Snow Man.” As with “Thirteen Ways,” Stevens emphasizes wintry landscapes, suggesting that a certain coldness—dispassion or stoicism—can help a person see.

“So This is Nebraska” by Ted Kooser (1980)

Though Kooser critiques the difficult kind of poetry represented by Modernism, Stevens, and “Thirteen Ways,” many of Kooser’s poems connect to Modernism and Imagism. In “So This is Nebraska,” Kooser, who was born in the Midwest and lived in Nebraska for most of his life, presents a fragmented, somewhat creepy image of the state. Like the speaker in Stevens’s poem, Kooser’s speaker possesses nobility and detects the ebullient spirit in the dilapidated surroundings.