World Poetry Day

I just saw on Twitter that today is World Poetry Day. I never knew about this until today. From Wikipedia:

World Poetry Day is on 21 March, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999. The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements".

It was generally celebrated in October, sometimes on the 5th, but in the latter part of the 20th Century the world community celebrated it on 15 October, the birthday of Virgil, the Roman epic poet and poet laureate under Augustus. The tradition to keep an October date for national or international poetry day celebrations still holds in many countries.^[1] It is still 5 October in the UK.^[2] Alternatively, a different October or even November date is celebrated.

So in celebration, I decided to share a poem I read earlier this year (from this website):

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Related Poem Content Details

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.