January 29th

                In class we spoke about the poem by Wallace Stevens called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. The poem spoke of this Blackbird which I imagines as life. The poem symbolizes the simple things that are usually overlooked or summarized. In the second part the author says “I was of three minds, like a tree in which there are three blackbirds”, I kind of interpreted the as the world and the blackbirds are different lives of individuals. All different with different viewpoints of the world. The poem also speaks of the golden bird which I imagined as the more lavish lifestyle compared the blackbird which is the more common lifestyle. People spend so much time dreaming about living the lavish lifestyle they forget to enjoy the little things their current lifestyle has to offer.

               From the book Tocqueville the poem I found most interesting is called “On the Difficulty of Documentation”. Mattawa spoke about the stories that can be produced just by looking at a single photo. What the actual story is could be completely different from what the photographer captured. In the beginning of the poem he spoke of the women caring the world on their heads or women carrying THEIR world on their heads. There is no way of knowing which interpretation is correct or which is wrong. Applying that observation to other things makes it easier to not be so judgmental.

 Going back to the poem about the thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird speaking about perspective it’s very important. From something one person find strange and another may find beauty. This reminds me of other cultures, knowing and understanding are different. I believe that a person cannot fully respect another’s culture until they understand it, they will not understand it until they place themselves in the other person’s shoes. Just knowing a culture simply means that you either accept it or not, but you surely cannot understand it.