Who is the Speaker in the poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird?

The narrator or speaker of the poem is the person who describes beholding the blackbird amidst the snow mountains and then recounts a series of reflections. It is the one who is “of three minds” (2). The sex of the narrator is never specified. The perspective of the narrators is especially obscured in the verse – even appearing esoteric at times. For instance, in the first canto it is unclear how a human being could have the vantage to observe the scene as it is described. The narrator also reveals themselves as a figure of standing, wisdom, and repose: “I know noble accents / And lucid, inescapable rhythms” (8). In this sense the poem cultivates the narrator as a sage source of contemplation and, notably, a group of voices rather than any one person.