Thirteen (hundredmilllionthousdand) ways of looking at a Blackbird.

This website is the perfect example of how literature is seen and objectified by a certain individual. It is also a perfect example of how the interpreter’s view can reach a vast, wide audience by simply making a website. The poem was written in 1917 but due to the Internet it can now be interpreted, translated, and visualized. So although the poem is very abstract in nature, it’s availability on the internet makes it easy to garner individual views as to the meaning of the poem. It also allows those views to be published and seen by millions as well.

Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird is a poem written by Wallace Stevens that talks about, obviously, a blackbird. It is slightly abstract in that it jumps from specific images and ideas to broad, general notions and depictions – “Among twenty snowy mountains/ the only moving thing/ was the eye of the blackbird.” This first verse gives an image of large, sweeping mountains, then it zooms in on a very small, miniscule dot of a blackbird’s eye. This is the general feel of the poem. It gives a vivid, wide description, of a landscape or person and soon delves into a mind or focuses in on an object usually within a stanza. The motion of this poem makes the reader think, and stretch their minds to figure out what exactly it is that Stevens is trying to say. Some of the imagery is obvious but the movement between these images is what keeps the poem in an ambivalent state.

For example, stanza four is stated as such: “A man and woman are one/A man and a woman and a blackbird are one.” The first part is easy to visualize. But throw in a blackbird in the second phrase and that third party throws off the previous phrase by adding an element that is out of place. A man and a woman are a natural pair. The one needs the other to procreate, so naturally, that pairing is easy to imagine. However, the thought of the blackbird in that equation does not naturally compute. Not because it doesn’t fit into the idea of procreation but because it isn’t the first thing that is thought of when a man and a woman are associated together. Man, woman, blackbird isn’t a common inclination, so by putting the image of a blackbird next to the Adam and Eve image makes the reader stretch his or her mind to see if and how all three can fit together. Therefore, the abstractedness of this poem as illustrated by the previously mentioned verse ultimately makes it objective to the reader. The phrases are general enough to where anyone can read them and obtain an image in their minds, but each reader will have a different image. The scenes portrayed in the poem are general, and specific at the same time, but still oddly linked together. It then lies upon the reader to see how it all connects. This is where the website comes into play, and the portrayal of the poem as seen by the web master.

The person who designed the website notes that

“The idea for this version of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird came to me a couple of years ago, when I was working on my own one Saturday and there was a heavy fall of snow. In the middle of the afternoon, whilst waiting for the kettle to boil for my umpteenth cup of coffee, I happened to glance out of the window. In the carpark outside grows a crab-apple tree, which bears very bright red fruit in winter, and because of the snow the apples were looking particularly vivid. On one branch of the tree perched a blackbird - a startling contrast with both the white snow and the red fruit. Pretentious soul that I am, I was immediately reminded of Wallace Stevens' poem, and almost as immediately it occurred to me that the crab-apple tree would make an excellent interface for a new media version, with the bright red apples acting as buttons to call up the different sections.”

He specifically mentions a “new media version” of the poem meaning that he had

thought of a new way to display the poem. His version is interactive – the crab apples on the tree can be clicked, and each stanza can be viewed independently of each other – and this in itself creates a whole new way of looking at the poem. When each stanza is taken out of context with the rest of poem, the connotations and undertones of the poem can change quite drastically. For example, verse two and verse four are similar in that they relate three different things. Verse two relates the mind of the author to the three minds of three blackbirds. Verse four relates a man, a woman and a blackbird. Yet if these two were taken out of the context of the poem, they would most likely mean something entirely different on their own. Verse two is contemplating the likeness of his mind with that of the blackbirds. If it were possible to read and view this on its own – which it is – the poem could be thought of as the author trying to relate to the blackbird. But verse four could be seen as the author trying to relate the blackbird to humanity and not just his mind. Both verses could mean different things altogether, especially when viewed with graphics and in a non-linear fashion. This is the beauty of technology and interactive media. Poems that were written almost one hundred years ago can still have new meaning and a different voice.

This website has become a perfect example of how new mediums can have an impact on how we view and read literature. It is not just the pretty pictures that accompany the text that makes it different; it is the way in which the content is literally accessed and displayed that makes the reader interpret the prose in a different way. In a similar fashion to the way the printing press spread knowledge, the Internet is now able to spread not just knowledge but interpretation as well. And not just from scholars and learned people, but from individuals sitting at a computer with something to say.