10 Ways of Looking at Red

This is my 10 Ways of Looking at poem, popularized by Wallace Stevens in his poem, "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." We actually did a collaborative activity of this where we passed our poems around the room and one person would write a stanza in the style of Stevens. I found the activity quite interesting because it was cool to see how other people interpreted one thing. Enjoy!


Desolate, naked woods

A landscape of a snowy white

And a splash of Red

Spilled in the circle of life


I am of many moods

And one of them is a rage

As hot as a Red star


The Red of the hot autumn sky

Lay over the quiet field like a blanket

Just before the dark


Count the shades of Red

Red is everywhere

Count them- Red of a rose

or Red of war-torn failures

Count the shades of Red


Red

So dark it’s almost

Black

Drips and splatters

Like blots of

Red, Red ink,

Ink that writes your fate


Look at the Red of the water

When God punished the Pharaoh—

Or the Red that filled Moses’ painted sea


Explosions

Then Red flickering fire

In the silence


When the Red horizon,

Collapsed out of sight

It marked

The horizontal end,

Of an endless world


Aphrodite’s robes hung Red,

The color of love

Lust in her eyes

Her passion is never dead


 The day fades to black

Only a speck of Red

Where the sun

had once called

—home.