Love Letters to Poetry | Thirteen Ways of Surprising Yourself and Your Reader

One thing about writing poetry that I especially love is that it teaches me to see the world with fresh eyes.

Wallace Stevens certainly did this when he wrote “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” which is an excellent study in observation. A wonderful way to develop one’s poetic eye is to study something—anything!—and write about it in thirteen—or more—different ways. I have found this exercise to be very useful, especially when I don’t know what to write about (which happens more often than I’d care to admit). Pick something—anything!—and write about it in thirteen different ways.

I find it is especially interesting and enlightening to look at something or someone very familiar to me and see what more I can learn. I have written, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Mother,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at My Cat,” “Thirteen Ways of Looking at 9/11,” and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Life Before the Virus.” When I am forced to keep looking at something and come up with yet another perspective about it, my creativity stretches and I surprise myself, which is a wonderful gift that poetry can give the poet as well as the reader. Here is a link to Wallace Stevens’ poem, followed by two poems of my own that were inspired by it.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard

1
Among twenty crowded classrooms

The only sound

Was the rat-tat-tat

Of the white stick of chalk

Against the black blackboard.

2
I was of three minds,

Like the multiple-choice question

With three incorrect answers

Scrawled upon the blackboard.

3
The eraser whirled across the blackboard.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

4
A teacher and her classroom

Are one.

A teacher and her classroom and her blackboard

Are one.

5
I do not know which I dread more,

The start of the lesson

Or the end of the lesson.

The blackboard covered with problems

Or just erased.

6
Foreign words filled the blackboard

In a curled and swirling script.

The shadow of the teacher

Paced to and fro

Her mood was indeciperhable.

7
Oh restless children at your wooden desks

Why do you stare out the window at the sky?

Do you not see the blank blackboard before you

Waiting like a Buddha for your attention?

8
I know great lines from great poetry

And my times-tables up through twelve.

But I know, too,

That the blackboard is involved

In everything I know.

9
When the blackboard disappeared

From the front of the classroom,

It marked the end of one of many eras.

10
At the sight of the cracked blackboard

Lying on the curb with the trash,

Even the most overworked, underpaid teacher

Would cry out sharply.

11
She dreamt she was back

In her third grade classroom

And a great fear pierced her

As she watched herself vanish

Into the bottomless black hole

Of the blackboard.

12
The classroom is empty.

The blackboard must be lonely.

13
It was the end of the school year

All year long.

We were graduating

And we were going to graduate.

The blackboard sat

Covered in chalk dust.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Poet

I
Among seven silent rooms

under a moonless midnight sky

the only sound heard

is the poet’s pen

scritching across the page

II
The poet was of three minds

like a sonnet, a sestina

and a terza rima

III
The poet tried to compose herself

It was a sorry part of the pantomime

IV
A poet and a poem are one

A poet and a poem and a reader

are one

V
The poet does not know

which to prefer:

starting a poem

or ending a poem:

the act of writing

or the act of having written

VI
Coffee grows cold in the cup

wine goes unsipped in the glass

The poet paces endlessly

Her mood is indecipherable

VII
Oh young people of the world

with your cell phones, lap tops, and video games

can’t you see the poems waiting to be read

scattered like fallen leaves all around you?

VIII
The poet knows how to dance the watusi

and bake brownies that can break your heart

but she knows, too

that poetry is involved in everything she knows

IX
When the poem flew out of the poet’s mind

it marked the edge of one of many circles

X
At the sight of all those poetry collections

on the bookshelves of the library

the poet cried out in ecstasy and despair

XI
The poet went to a café

and fear overtook her

in that she mistook all the

latté-sipping patrons for poets

XII
The poet’s pen is moving

The poet must be writing

XIII
It was the middle of the night all day long

The poet was writing and she was going to write

The poem sat in her mind waiting

“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard” and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at A Poet”

Copyright ©2018 Lesléa Newman from LOVELY (Headmistress Press). Used by permission of the author.