A Walk with Wallace Stevens: II

(Note: This post is a continuation of the one previously posted. You might want to scan that one first.)

Before we continue on our Wallace Stevens Walk through the Asylum Hill section of Hartford (CT), I wanted to suggest a couple of ways in which you might approach Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird  with young children or adolescents--or have fun with it yourself.

IDEAS FOR SHARING STEVENS' POETRY WITH OTHERS

Use the haiku-like stanzas to inspire a work of art:

I would think that watercolors would be especially suited for illustrating some of the stanzas of "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird". A very nice technique with young artists is to first draw an outline of a picture in black Sharpie permanent marker on good watercolor paper. Then they can use watercolors in either saturated color or a wash for a pretty effect. Young children and adolescents may either wish to illustrate a part of the poem directly or use the poetry to inspire their own creations.

If you're looking for a volume of Stevens poetry that may appeal to children, you might look at:












This book is part of a series that treats a variety of American poets and presents them in a format that is supposed to appeal to younger readers. 








Older children and adults might be interested in the aspects of the artistic Cubism movement (e.g., Picasso) can be seen in this poem particularly, in which an artist is portraying a single subject in multiple layers, styles, and viewpoints.


Listen to "Thirteen Ways...." inspired music: 

Some pieces that have been directly inspired by the Stevens poem include:

(I'm including these Amazon links so that you can see the images and read the details of the productions. I would also think an i-tunes search might be fruitful. I haven't listened to these, but playing them while creating some poem-inspired artwork sounds kind of cool to me.)

Create your own "Wallace Stevens Walk":
You might design your own poem markers that wind around your home or property or that create a path in a building (e.g., a school) hallway. Wouldn't it be great to have the 13 stanzas and accompanying artwork posted at intermittent sites along a school corridor or around the perimeter of a classroom?


Take a scientific or cultural look at blackbirds:
Use the Wallace Stevens exporation as a jumping off point to investigate blackbirds from a biological/behavioral point of view; or consider how blackbird imagery has been used in other artistic and cultural mediums. The Four-and-Twenty-Blackbird nursery rhyme and The Beatles song "Blackbird" come to mind. But there are other bits of folklore about black birds--including ravens and crows--that could be explored, not the least of which might include the Hitchcock's classic movie--

And now that you've been sufficiently creeped out by black birds....

let us continue on our walk down Asylum Avenue....

We noticed this bit of gothic-whimsy on the iron gate in front of The Hartford Conservatory of Music, the location of the third Stevens stone...and seems a fitting segway from the Hitchcock film back to our walk.

The next stanza may be read as a bit of koan. 

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

When you do the math, we come up with a new paradigm that reflects and challenges the religious/cultural messages that a man and a woman become one.  If "two are one", is it also be true that "three are one"? 

Do the man, the woman and the blackbird represent a Trinity?

The building across the street. Undoubtedly this was a private home at one time; now it houses a FM rock radio station.

The next block brings us to the fifth stone, in front of the original building of St. Francis Hospital. Wally is almost halfway home.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

The auditory "image" of this one is quite beautiful when you think of a sound of a birdsong and the  echo of silence that succeeds it. If you're interested you might ponder the various meanings of the word "inflections" and "innuendoes".

Here is a view of the St. Francis Hospital building as seen from the fifth Stevens stone on Asylum Avenue.  Throughout Stevens'  lifetime he would've seen several expansions of the hospital campus on the land behind this Asylum Hill structure.

To continue on our walk, we must cross the intersection of Woodland Street. Directly across the street is the building that houses the Hartford Classical Magnet High School, a public high school with an emphasis on a classic liberal arts curriculum. 

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of a blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

I hate to show an image here, but am struck by the image of the icicles filling a long window "with barbaric glass" and thought this image captures a certain spirit of nature's hostile and uncivilized quality evoked by that phrase. It's certainly an odd juxtaposition with our sunny summery day in the above photograph (this brings to mind the famous line of Albert Camus...."In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer"...could the inverse also be true?)

ENJOY YOUR HAPPY DAY!

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....

It's All in the Numbers...!

Today's post looks at some cool math that forms the structure of some very important books in the English language. I was recently reading parts of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. As you know, this is the Italian medieval epic poem that famously describes the descending and concentric circles of hell. If you have an X-box, you may have even played the game called Dante's Inferno, based on this work written nearly 700 years ago! At any rate, although there are many cool things about Alighieri's original spiritual allegory you might find the math behind the story especially interesting.

First, keep in mind that 10 was considered the perfect number (perhaps it still is). It then follows that 10-squared (or, 100) is also significant; as are the numbers 3 (representing the Trinity, for example, but also a significant number in other religious traditions) and subsequently the number 3-squared (or, 9).





The Divine Comedy itself consists of 3 parts:



1. Inferno (or Hell)

2. Purgatorio (Purgatory)

3. Paradiso (Heaven).

Each part is divided by cantos (the epic poem's equivalent of a chapter in a novel).

1. Inferno=34 cantos

2. Purgatorio=33 cantos

3. Paradiso=33 cantos

Total= 100

(and should you feel the extra canto in the first part feels less than symmetrical, note that this section includes an introduction to the entire poem itself, 
 thus accounting for the extra canto).




ONE MAN'S HELL...



Within each section, the 3/9 structure abounds. 
For example, in Inferno, the lost souls are arranged in 3 main groups and occupy 9 circles of hell. As you can see from the illustration to the right, the nine circles of hell are contained within this funnel-shaped geometric opening (extending from the surface of the earth downward toward an icy center....note: this is written before our modern concept of a molten earth's core.)


Purgatory, depicted as a mountain rising up from a solitary island, has 9 divisions as well.

1. Ante-Purgatory (the base of the mountain)

2. 7 divisions of Purgatory (the middle of the mountain)

3. The Garden of Eden, or an earthly paradise (at the summit)
















And finally there is the True Paradise (aka, Heaven)!












NOW LET'S TURN TO THE BOOK OF LUKE...



Since we're dealing with a text about a spiritual journey, let me suggest another math-based group of allegorical stories that you may know--the parables of Jesus.

Huh? Jesus as a math whiz?

Check this out (from the Book of Luke):

When asked by a group of religious leaders who were suspicious of Jesus and concerned that Jesus was hanging out with the wrong crowd (generally referred to as tax collectors and sinners), Jesus responds with three stories--or parables--to illustrate his answer. They each follow one another to make a triptych response...(and remember, the number 3 is a special number in many spiritual practices!).



At any rate, in these stories it's interesting to look at ratios. In the first story, the shepherd has 100 sheep, but 1 has wandered. The shepherd rejoices that the 1 is found. The ratio is 1:100.









In the second story, a woman has 10 coins, but loses 1. She searches all over the house and eventually finds it. The 1:10.

In the final story, a man has 2 sons. One becomes lost--the prodigal son--but then returns to the overjoyed father. The ratio is now 1:2.













Cool, huh? By shortening the ratios from 1:100 to 1:2 these stories not only hold together in structural unity and mathematical unity, but also thematic unity--Jesus can in this way respond that God is overjoyed at the return of ANY of his lost lambs, valuable souls, and beloved children (including "tax collectors and sinners"). Rather elegant, isn't it?



Now, both of these examples were spiritual allegories, where you might say numbers hold a unique significance. You can also draw an obvious line of influence from the biblical text to the medieval one written centuries later.

Perhaps you have examples of your own? Do you know of a novel or poem supported by a mathematical structure--or in which math concepts play a major role in theme or plot? Do tell!