Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Though the poem’s content can be elusive and mysterious, the overall form is rather exact. Stevens lays out 13 ways to look at a blackbird, and each way gets its own separate section with an accompanying number. Section 1 represents the first way of seeing a blackbird, Section 2 represents the second way, and so on. The clear labels turn the poem into a list or an instructional manual. In other words, the poem’s explicit form mimics the overtly organized form of a step-by-step guide or a carefully compiled list. As the blackbird and the environment are agile and fluid, the stable form juxtaposes the unsettled content, and the contrast dramatizes and animates the themes of sight, fluidity, and mystery.

The form within the sections is free verse—that is, the lines don’t have to rhyme or have a certain number of syllables, nor do the stanzas (the sections) have to have a specific number of lines. In keeping with the poem’s elusiveness, Stevens comes close to maintaining a haiku-like meter, with many of the lines ranging between five and eight syllables. As a noble and free person, however, Stevens inevitably transgresses the