Emily Dickinson
June 10, 2008 6:36 PM Subscribe
I am half in love with Emily Dickinson.
posted by John of Michigan at 6:57 PM on June 10, 2008
posted by John of Michigan at 6:57 PM on June 10, 2008
BOP has just cited the very reason that I can no longer appreciate any Dickinson poem. A weak excuse, I know, but "The Yellow Rose" is a terrible thing. If you dare to investigate further his very accurate observation, you will share my same fate.
You've been warned.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:13 PM on June 10, 2008
You've been warned.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:13 PM on June 10, 2008
Right after 9/11 happened, the New York Times published her poem "After great pain, a formal feeling comes --."
So the case that she can be a post 9/11 poet was made right after the attacks.
Also, the reason many of the poems can be sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or "Amazing Grace" is that they are hymnal verse.
(Thank you, Dr. Rinehart. I do remember your lectures. Also, I apologize now for laziness in not looking up Dickinson's actual punctuation.)
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 7:46 PM on June 10, 2008
So the case that she can be a post 9/11 poet was made right after the attacks.
Also, the reason many of the poems can be sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas" or "Amazing Grace" is that they are hymnal verse.
(Thank you, Dr. Rinehart. I do remember your lectures. Also, I apologize now for laziness in not looking up Dickinson's actual punctuation.)
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 7:46 PM on June 10, 2008
I'll tell you one thing for sure. I wouldn't trust no words written down on no piece of paper ... especially from no Dickinson out in the town of Machine.
You're just as likely to find your own grave.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:08 PM on June 10, 2008 [2 favorites]
You're just as likely to find your own grave.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:08 PM on June 10, 2008 [2 favorites]
I recently taught a graduate English class on Emily Dickinson. It was a non-stop thrill ride. The number of classes that ended with a kind of nervous crazy giggle shared by the whole class was gratifyingly high.
But I confess: The more I read Dickinson, the less I understand her. "Getting" individual poems doesn't help. More than any other poet, there's no "solving" her.
posted by LucretiusJones at 8:13 PM on June 10, 2008
But I confess: The more I read Dickinson, the less I understand her. "Getting" individual poems doesn't help. More than any other poet, there's no "solving" her.
posted by LucretiusJones at 8:13 PM on June 10, 2008
Good night, because we must,
How intricate the dust!
I would go, to know!
Oh incognito!
Saucy, Saucy Seraph
To elude me so!
Father! they won't tell me,
Won't you tell them to?
Great post, homunculus. I agree with LJ. I, too, have found Dickinson's poetry landing farther from my grasp the more I read. They are like anti-koans, which then become koans of their own. A truly unique poet, using (as noted) a highly conventional format. Amazing works.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:49 PM on June 10, 2008
How intricate the dust!
I would go, to know!
Oh incognito!
Saucy, Saucy Seraph
To elude me so!
Father! they won't tell me,
Won't you tell them to?
Great post, homunculus. I agree with LJ. I, too, have found Dickinson's poetry landing farther from my grasp the more I read. They are like anti-koans, which then become koans of their own. A truly unique poet, using (as noted) a highly conventional format. Amazing works.
posted by mrgrimm at 8:49 PM on June 10, 2008
Some of the pieces she(?) quarried out for poems are in her collected letters still part of the living rock; if you want to know what this thing a billion of us bear together-- the English language-- can do at full stretch, read those letters.
posted by jamjam at 9:43 PM on June 10, 2008
posted by jamjam at 9:43 PM on June 10, 2008
It's not that Emily Dickinson is a post-9/11 poet so much that Maureen McLane, just like all of us, is a post-9/11 reader. I can't read about clouds of dust without thinking of the rush of particles down New York streets. Every time I see a movie set in New York made before 2002 when the Twin Towers are in the frame it distracts my brain from the film.
I think that an article about how we read Dickinson in the modern age would have been very interesting. To me, Dickinson is a very impersonal, imaginistic poet. But then, I write impersonal, imaginistic poetry (though that's been changing lately). I feel like Dickinson is the type of poet it's very easy to project onto, that the random thoughts of one's brain can be easily read into her poems (I have the same response to Eliot).
Thanks to satellite television nearly every contemporary reader of Dickinson will have strong images of the planes being flown in the World Trade Center, the skyscrapers collapsing, people fleeing, dust and smoke. These memories are there, in us, not far under the surface. Dickinson's more evocative poems will call these pictures forth, forcing us to read her poetry with thoughts of 9/11 in our head.
posted by Kattullus at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2008
I think that an article about how we read Dickinson in the modern age would have been very interesting. To me, Dickinson is a very impersonal, imaginistic poet. But then, I write impersonal, imaginistic poetry (though that's been changing lately). I feel like Dickinson is the type of poet it's very easy to project onto, that the random thoughts of one's brain can be easily read into her poems (I have the same response to Eliot).
Thanks to satellite television nearly every contemporary reader of Dickinson will have strong images of the planes being flown in the World Trade Center, the skyscrapers collapsing, people fleeing, dust and smoke. These memories are there, in us, not far under the surface. Dickinson's more evocative poems will call these pictures forth, forcing us to read her poetry with thoughts of 9/11 in our head.
posted by Kattullus at 1:25 PM on June 11, 2008
I think Robert Frost is a good poet, I own a book with his poetry in which I sometimes read.
I still can't see his name without thinking: "Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"
posted by Kattullus at 6:15 PM on July 6, 2008
I still can't see his name without thinking: "Run you pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"
posted by Kattullus at 6:15 PM on July 6, 2008
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"Because I would not stop for Death he kindly stopped for me..." Go'head. Try it.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 6:48 PM on June 10, 2008