Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird Versions of Reality Quotes

The title asks you to consider that you don't really know what a blackbird is until you've considered it from different angles. And even then you still only have a limited view of it. There is no one "real" or "true" blackbird.

Stevens turns the blackbird into an element in a simile. How is a blackbird like a "mind"? At this point, it's good to remember what Stevens himself said about the poems, "This group of poems is not meant to be a collection of epigrams or of ideas, but of sensations" (source). So, what does a blackbird in your mind feel like?

The speaker seems to be saying, "When you think about it, we're all just slices of the same pie. You, me, that blackbird over there…"