so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
[size=85]William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow[/size]
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
[size=85]Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird[/size]
There seems to be a similar focus on language in these two poems that I remember from college. I chose to recite “Thirteen Ways…” from memory for a class once and I remember speaking it in very measured pace and letting the diction and the line breaks guide me to a rhythm. I always focused on the rhythm I wanted whenever I used to reflect and write poetry, and whatever words I chose, I chose because they gave the rhythm I was looking for.
Often times, yes. In some poems, though, it doesn’t feel like there are words on display but a mood cast in words, for instance, where the words are set down as any old words just there to get you from A to B.