Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock (Wallace Stevens)

Another poem by Wallace Stevens.

I am not bummed by what I have seen. His poem last night beckoned me to review my world to discover angles I had not known. This night's poem seems to say that most things are, indeed, just things and have no more stories or angles to discover. However, sometimes you find your "blackbird". You realize that "Only, here and there, an old sailor" waits to be found. The old sailor could be anybody, anything with stories that is hidden behind, in this case, a grizzled and sleeping, drunk face. Don't discount anybody or anything. Thinking on a blackbird could make you part of cannon. Considering suburbia could be the base of another meaningful poem.

Favorite line: "People are not going/To dream of baboons and periwinkles."

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (Wallace Stevens)

Straightforward. Simple phrasing that belies deeper intentions. New eyes unto the world. I find this poem by Wallace Stevens to be breathtakingly beautiful, but it is the kind of beauty that does not allow for pictures, awes, or intakes of breath. Instead, the kind of beauty in this poem forces you to appreciate, nod, and lift your eyes to the things around you and see them, perhaps, for the first time. Their wholeness.

Favorite line: "A man and a woman/Are one./A man and a woman and a blackbird/Are one."