Wallace Stevens reminds me of Robert Frost's expression that a poem should start in delight and end in wonder. This is not a poem that makes sense the first time you read it, you say "neat" and you move on with your life never looking back. The poetry of Wallace Stevens The jeweled puzzle box they have to pick at and spend time with and twist and turn to get it to reveal it secrets.
To the one who said this is pretentious drivel, I can understand feeling that way. An earlier version of me would have said the same thing. This was early 1900s after World War I and everybody was questioning the way we had done things, and trying to do them differently. The way we used to do things led to a horrifying World War, so let's rethink everything. We moved away from representational art to the dada movement, and poetry moved away from Yeats and Longfellow and tried to find new ways to describe the ineffable, or, to quote Stevens, "the the."
It's challenging, and it takes work, but that's why there are parts of his poetry that I can still remember word for word, but the 'Love is" slop on the inside of business cards, sorry, I meant greeting cards, fades away like it's written in water.
This must be one of the most awful, pretentious, meaningless pieces of piss-taking drivel I've read in a long time. And that's saying something.
No wonder there is so little ability anymore to discern the difference between real poetry and someone who's just taking the piss and laughs when no one is watching. It's like modern & contemporary art. Which had the same effect on art as this sort of drivel has had on poetry.
Karan, reading this again felt like slipping into a series of quiet rooms, each one lit from a different angle. Stevens has this way of making the blackbird feel less like a bird and more like a thought that keeps returning in different shapes. What struck me most this time was how calm the poem is, even when it edges toward mystery — nothing is forced, nothing is explained. Each section feels like a small pause, a moment of noticing something you’d normally overlook. And that line you highlighted — “The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.” — still lands with that soft, almost accidental wisdom. It’s simple, but it opens something. The whole poem feels like an invitation to look again, and then again, until the ordinary becomes strange enough to pay attention to.
A favorite, thank you for posting. Each time I read this poem, I land on a line that turns a little differently than it did before.
"I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after."
Wallace Stevens reminds me of Robert Frost's expression that a poem should start in delight and end in wonder. This is not a poem that makes sense the first time you read it, you say "neat" and you move on with your life never looking back. The poetry of Wallace Stevens The jeweled puzzle box they have to pick at and spend time with and twist and turn to get it to reveal it secrets.
To the one who said this is pretentious drivel, I can understand feeling that way. An earlier version of me would have said the same thing. This was early 1900s after World War I and everybody was questioning the way we had done things, and trying to do them differently. The way we used to do things led to a horrifying World War, so let's rethink everything. We moved away from representational art to the dada movement, and poetry moved away from Yeats and Longfellow and tried to find new ways to describe the ineffable, or, to quote Stevens, "the the."
It's challenging, and it takes work, but that's why there are parts of his poetry that I can still remember word for word, but the 'Love is" slop on the inside of business cards, sorry, I meant greeting cards, fades away like it's written in water.
This must be one of the most awful, pretentious, meaningless pieces of piss-taking drivel I've read in a long time. And that's saying something.
No wonder there is so little ability anymore to discern the difference between real poetry and someone who's just taking the piss and laughs when no one is watching. It's like modern & contemporary art. Which had the same effect on art as this sort of drivel has had on poetry.
Karan, reading this again felt like slipping into a series of quiet rooms, each one lit from a different angle. Stevens has this way of making the blackbird feel less like a bird and more like a thought that keeps returning in different shapes. What struck me most this time was how calm the poem is, even when it edges toward mystery — nothing is forced, nothing is explained. Each section feels like a small pause, a moment of noticing something you’d normally overlook. And that line you highlighted — “The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.” — still lands with that soft, almost accidental wisdom. It’s simple, but it opens something. The whole poem feels like an invitation to look again, and then again, until the ordinary becomes strange enough to pay attention to.
💛 Wallace Stevens! Great share today.
This is one of the first poems I ever felt, and it gets more lovely & moving as I get older. 🖤
I became an English major because of this poem.
A blackbird looked at me in thirteen ways that added together were more than a number. Beautiful poem.
Love this poem and format!