Assignment #2

ASSIGNMENT #2: REPETITION AND MEANING

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.

In addition to the Wallace Stevens poem, please watch this short film on Jackson Pollock’s process and consider rhythm, repetition, and movement in his work (and in the film-maker’s work who produced this short documentary).  Viewable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cgBvpjwOGo

Somatic Work: Going further with the somatic writing—take a phrase (movement shape) and transpose it on at least three parts of your kinesphere and vary at least 3 elements of its performance: (speed, size, force/musculature, continuity, dimensionality, directionality.) Learn your phrase so you are able to repeat it for the class on Thursday.

Notebook Prompt:  After you complete the musing, movement, and writing exercises—how do you see/feel them relating to or diverging from one another? Was Pollock dancing?  Why or why not—how or how not?

**We will be meeting in the Noble Center dance studio on Thursday for class. Wear VERY movement-friendly clothing (no jeans... sweats or yoga pants or even shorts, etc.)