Friday, October 21, 2005

Wallace Stevens' Blackbirds


Wallace Stevens moved to Hartford in 1916 at one point living in an apartment building at the corner of Prospect and Farmington Avenues. He would walk to work down Farmington Avenue, past Little Hollywood, past the Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe Houses to the Hartford Accident and Indemnity which was at the nexus of Asylum and Farmington Avenues. If you were to make that walk today you would see in front of Saint Joseph's Cathedral the largest murder of crows you have ever seen unless you're an Iowan corn farmer. I wonder if these are the descendants of Wallace's blackbirds? Back then in the 1930's there had been a trolley that ran all the way to Farmington down Farmington Avenue. I wonder if he would ride sometimes and look at all the pretty young women in Little Hollywood and then the homes of literary giants and then the blackbirds, and have time to think?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think the preferred nomenclature is 'Iowa'corn farmer.