Blackbird v Blackbird: Stevens v Sarai: Two Poems

"The End of November: The Birds That Didn't Learn How to Fly" by Thornton Dial, 2007. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.

I am close to embarrassed, but what would be the point. I already know that I am not Wallace Stevens, and he is not Sarah Sarai. That being established may I say I had Stevens’ poem in mind as I wrote “Another Way of Looking.” I was responding to Stevens. Saying, Click a prism and you will see different perspectives with each time. But now that I see my poem adjacent to the great Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen Ways...” Well. Yikes and all that. Sigh. I plow on. First my poem. Then his. Thanks to the editor of Prelude, Stu Watson.

Another Way of Looking
by Sarah Sarai

The poem on the page
remains on the page

the page with the poem is
the page with the poem it

may lift it self (up)

or snack and nap

but there it is on the page

in all its theory

in all its wisdom which

is not all wisdom

hey, a blackbird knows wisdom

just one blackbird

no need to cast shade over

the whole of them

from Prelude Journal, Stu Watson, ed.

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.   

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.

from the Poetry Foundation website.

Sarah Sarai's Editorial Services (to be continued)

First draft, 2/11/23. I'm a stone cold, birthright English major who can edit the sense out of the angels and proofread the evil out of Satan's cold soul. 

Hildegard of Bingen

12th-century editor (and writer) 

In Brief

I am an editor of most anything with words. Fiction. Nonfiction. Poetry. Your manuscript. 

My rates are in accord with the Editorial Freelancer Association's rate sheet. I charge by the number of pages plus the challenge your writing may present (i.e., scholarly; medical; fiction or memoir; poetry...). 

 

How It Works

We talk and/or email. I look at your manuscript (or a portion) and make an estimate in accord with the Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) rate sheet, so there is no mystery. If you approve, I draw up a contract which includes a projection of due dates for both of us. I've never had any problem getting paid, but the contract lays out what to can expect, including a timeline. I require a downpayment before I begin, and full payment on completion.

My Story 

(Feel Free to Skip This. I'm Interest in Process and How the Backstory of Journeys so 

I Am Revealing a Bit of Mine)

I was about twenty-five years old when I first realized I could edit. I hadn't thought about it, rarely used the word "edit." But my oldest sister mailed me a few of her poems. I read them, and realized they could use a change here or there. And I would never make a suggestion to my sister about anything. I both worshipped her and found her a bit scary. It's a shame I didn't speak up. I buried my editing self to read read read, smoke marijuana, go back to school for a secondary diploma, teach high school English for three years. That was all in Los Angeles. I moved to Seattle, where I was invited to participate in a small workshop for writers. I was writing short fiction. A woman in the workshop very much appreciated my editing finesse and mentioned me to her supervisor who hired me, when the woman (let's say Queen of Queens) left. For four year I was the Writing Lab person at Antioch College in Seattle. That's close to editing. 

Even closer to editing is editing. I became the editor-in-chief of Northwest Ethnic News. I don't know how. I'd taken one class in journalism in college and felt kinda sorta shamed by the grumpy geezer journalists in charge. I fled to English Lit. Thomas Hardy. Like that. But there I was and there I stayed for four years, working on a monthly newspaper. The original job of NWEN editors was to publish articles about the many types of Scandinavians in the Pacific Northwest and their dances, artwork, and such. Its ... (I'm not finished here.)

(I hope this isn't too much. I'm incredibly shy yet incredibly pushy. Go figure.)

Sarah Sarai