A Walk with Wallace Stevens: I

From the time of the first World War until the 1950s, Wallace Stevens was known around the streets of Hartford, Connecticut as Mr. Stevens, an esteemed (and maybe a little cranky...the nice word is "curmudgeonly") executive of the Hartford Accident & Indemnity Company...what is known today as The Hartford insurance company.

During a graduate class at Trinity College (Hartford, CT) I heard a story recounted by someone who knew an older man who as a new employee of The Hartford was told not to engage Mr. Stevens in small talk, as he "really hated that." It just so happened that this new employee's workspace was on the way to the executive bathroom and he often encountered the stand-offish vice president of the company in the loo. As awkward as it seemed, the new kid did his best to ostensibly ignore the elder boss. Some time later, the story is told, Stevens thanked him for not not bothering him with trivial chitchat.

Why was his so insistent?

He was often composing poems. Wallace Stevens was also regarded as one of America's greatest modern poets. For more information, see the website of the "Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens".

He also famously conceived of many of his poems as he walked to and from his home and work (a necessity since he never learned to drive.)

Nice house, huh?

But here is the exciting thing I want to share with you:

The "Friends and Enemies of Wallace Stevens" have memorialized the poet (and his daily walk) with small obelisks that include all of the stanzas of his 1917 poem, "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". Starting at The Hartford office, you can walk home with Stevens, so to speak, reading his poem along the way.

Hint: As you read the poem, think of a cubist painting that might show multiple renderings of a single subject (various points of view, styles etc.) and also consider the stanzas in the spirit of haiku.

If you'd like to walk along with me (and Wally), here we go:

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

by Wallace Stevens

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

The first stanza is etched into this stone.

Does it look a bit like a tombstone? (Maybe it's the flowers.)

But thinking about death, you might consider that blackbirds are often symbolic of death--other connotations include remembrance, mystery, and sorrow. They may be seen as evil or good, commonplace--but usually with an uncanny or supernatural aspect about them.

You may remember that they've been baked in a pie (a little weird):

And made famous by The Beatles (a bit doleful)...

Nancy Bogen writes in the literary journal The Explicator (Summer 2004) that "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is "an exploration or, if you will, a 'deconstruction' of the concepts of 'thirteen' and 'black,' which until recently have had largely irrational negative connotations in traditional Western culture".

You'll also notice interesting things with the numbers "1" and "3" ("13") in the numbers of lines, the number of stanzas, and within the text itself. And we all know what kinds of unlucky and malevolent things the number "13" conjures in our imaginations! Hmmm....death, a black bird, and the unlucky number 13? This almost seems like a poem by Poe.

But read...and walk...on:

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

We're walking down the length of Asylum Avenue (interesting name, eh?) in the Asylum Hill section of Hartford, toward the border of West Hartford (still a tony area of executive homes). This stone sits on the property of Asylum Hill Congregational Church, a beautiful gothic brownstone.

Here is the courtyard of the Asylum Hill church. You might also think about the significance here of the number 3 in spiritual traditions. The churches that Wallace walked past every day (Congregational, Baptist, and Roman Catholic) were all adherents of the religious concept of Trinity.

...and the view looking across the street (to give you a sense of place).

Continuing west we quickly come to the third stone.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

Just a bit farther down the walk, as I passed by some trees, these little brown birds fluttered back and forth from the limbs of the tree to the wrought iron fence next to the sidewalk. There were lots of them, but my camera was only able to capture one. They had the effect of whirling back and forth among the tree and their perches on the fence or the ground. Are these similar to the birds Wallace may have seen as he passed as well?

The buildings that I've passed, and Wallace would've passed as well, include these:

These are both on the same side of the street on which we're walking.

We'll continue our walk in the next posting...along with ideas for how you might share the poetry of Wallace Stevens with children (both young children and adolescents), as well as how to approach it yourself.

I hope you've enjoyed our little stroll down Asylum Avenue in Hartford with Wallace Stevens!

Come walk with us again....