Dickinson

Poem-A-Day April 13: If I can stop one Heart from breaking

Hello Friends,

I’m going to cheat today and send you two short poems by Emily Dickinson, both related to our agency and purpose in the world. The first is known as poem 919 and written circa 1864, and the second is known as poem 1391 written circa 1877.

Emily Dickinson has been previously featured many times in my poem-a-day emails, including in her own handwriting.

Enjoy.
Ællen

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

■

They might not need me — yet they might —
I’ll let my Heart be just in sight —
A smile so small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity —

■

Poem-A-Day April 25: To take us Lands away

Hello Friends,

For today’s poem, it’s helpful to know that in Emily Dickinson’s time a “frigate” meant a sailing ship built for speed and maneuverability, and “coursers” were swift horses.

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry —
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll —
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul —

■

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886) wrote her poems on little scraps of paper that have been carefully archived. Here is what the original “There is no Frigate like a Book” looks like:

image of manuscript

You can view more of Emily Dickinson’s poems in their original form in a book called The Gorgeous Nothings (2013) and online at EDickinson.org/.

Enjoy.
Ællen

Poem-A-Day April 9: Emily D.

[952]

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

Let us divide — with skill —
Let us discourse —with care —
Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire —

■

Hello Friends,

Do you recognize this poet? Interesting internal capitalization, lots of dashes, doesn’t use titles (so publishers substitute a number and/or first line)…

Early editions of Emily Dickinson’s poetry, all published after her lifetime, did not reflect her unique use of capitalization and punctuation — in particular the long dash. But we now consider these key characteristics of Dickinsonian (yes, she gets her own adjective… not to be confused with Dickensian) poetics.

Did any one read Power in Powder? What other spark, fire, or charcoal poems does this remind you of? Any favorites? I feel like a lot of writers have written their own version of this particular poem, across centuries, across cultures — humans seem to return again and again to an association between fire and the divine, the soul, and/or the gift of thinking and language.

Emily Dickinson has been featured many times before for poem-a-day, including Poem-A-Day April 13, 2014, Poem-A-Day April 25, 2010, Poem-A-Day April 25, 2009, and Poem-A-Day April 29, 2008. I am a little bit fascinated with her. Two of my favorite poetry books (of any kind — but these both happen to be about Emily Dickinson) are The Gorgeous Nothings and Open Me Carefully, if you want to learn more about this poet than what you may have been taught in grade school.

Love,
Ellen

Between Prose and Poetry

Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned to pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.

There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.

■

— Howard Nemerov, Sentences (1980)

See also Emily Dickinson’s “They shut me up in Prose – “.

Poem-a-Day April 13: The Gorgeous Nothings

Dickinson_GorgeousNothings_252all
Dickinson_GorgeousNothings_320all

Hello Friends,

Today’s jottings on the backs of envelopes are the original handwriting of Emily Dickinson — coming to you because of a gift given to me: Cathy gave me a copy of The Gorgeous Nothings, a beautiful reproduction of Emily Dickinson manuscripts released at the end of 2013. Dickinson experiments with the shape of the page in these works — there’s not a regular rectangle in the bunch — like the flap of envelope 252 above follows the taper of the poem from a longer line to a single word.

Dickinson then nearly runs out of room to write “Words” in the righthand taper of envelope 320 — I don’t think Dickinson actually believes that each word holds only one possible meaning, like a scabbard holds only one sword. For instance, she’s quite aware here that she’s using “One Bird” to embody all the wonders of music and the natural world. I think she means that words are as much manmade tools as swords are, and feeble in comparison to their task of trying to capture the beauty of the world around us, trying to capture even just one note of one bird.

E.E. Cummings has a line about “one bird” as well — it makes me wonder if Cummings could’ve ever read Dickinson’s envelope 320. He says, “I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.” There’s something about teaching stars not to dance that sounds a bit like putting each star away in its scabbard …which makes me think of a dozen other poems. Ok, better wrap this up:

The release of The Gorgeous Nothings coincided with the release of a vast, if not quite as gorgeous, new online archive of Emily Dickinson’s original manuscripts at EDickinson.org/ — explore if you’re interested! It could prove to be an exciting model for more libraries, trusts, and academic institutions to collaborate with each other in compiling their original manuscript holdings in the future.

I hope you’re enjoying National Poetry Month!
— Ellen

Poem-a-Day April 4: toxic green tuxedos

Hello Friends —

When poet Michael Dickman writes that this is the last dream he ever wants to have, I believe him — and his imagery is so vivid, I don’t think I could forget this last dream even if I wanted to.

In the same collection as “Killing Flies,” Dickman titles another poem “Emily Dickinson to the Rescue,” so it’s safe to assume both the conscious and unconscious poet are aware of literary associations between flies and death, including in Dickinson’s poem “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —”. The title of Dickman’s poetry collection itself is Flies — which raises the question of whether his poems are flies, and what it means for a poet to kill poems in his sleep.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Killing Flies

I sit down for dinner
with my dead brother
again

This is the last dream I ever want to have

Passing the forks
around the table, passing
the knives

There’s nothing to worry about

One thing I want to know is who’s in the kitchen right now if it isn’t me

It isn’t me

The kitchen is full of flies, flies are doing all the work

They light on the edge
of the roasted chicken
The bone china

That’s what they do

Light

I will look
more and more like him
until I’m older
than he is

Then he’ll look more like me

if I was
lost

The flies need to be killed as soon as we’re done eating this delicious meal they made

They serve us anything we want
in toxic green tuxedos
and

shit wings

My brother and I wipe our mouths
scrape our chairs back from the table
and stand up

These are the last things we’ll do together:

Eat dinner

Kill flies

You have to lie down
next to the bodies, shining
all in a row
like black sequins
stitching up
the kitchen floor

It’s hard to do but you have to do it

Quietly lay down
and not sleep

We were killing them with butcher knives but moved on to spatulas to save time and energy

Sticking their eyes
onto our earlobes and wrists
like Egyptian
jewelry

My brother and I work hard all night

He is my emergency exit

I am
his

dinner date

Poem-a-Day, April 9, 2011: civilaries

Hello Friends —

If you’ve been on this poem-a-day list all five years, you may have found every now and again I’ll deem a poem worthy of having you read over again a few years later, so thank you for bearing with me on the occasional repeat. One thing I don’t think I mentioned about today’s poem when I sent it to you in April 2007 is its synergy with a poem I sent you in April 2008 — I read Mary Oliver’s “small civilities” and Emily Dickinson’s “Chivalries as tiny” as closely connected.

Much like fellow Pulitzer-winner Robert Frost, Mary Oliver is often pigeon-holed as a “nature poet,” when in fact some of her most intriguing works take place within manmade walls. “Anne” appears in Oliver’s 1972 collection The River Styx, and is also included in her New and Selected Poems (1992). Thanks again to Molly for introducing me to this poem.

To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like poem-a-day list, visit www.poets.org.

Enjoy.
Ellen

Anne

The daughter is mad, and so
I wonder what she will do.
But she holds her saucer softly
And sips, as people do,
From moment to moment making
Comments of rain and sun,
Till I feel my own heart shaking —
Till I am the frightened one.
O Anne, sweet Anne, brave Anne,
What did I think to see?
The rumors of the village
Have painted you savagely.
I thought you would come in anger —
A knife beneath your skirt.
I did not think to see a face
So peaceful, and so hurt.
I know the trouble is there,
Under your little frown;
But when you slowly lift your cup
And when you set it down,
I feel my heart go wild, Anne,
I feel my heart go wild.
I know a hundred children,
But never before a child
Hiding so deep a trouble
Or wanting so much to please,
Or tending so desperately all
The small civilities.

“Anne” by Mary Oliver was also featured for Poem-a-Day April 9, 2007.

Poem-a-Day, April 25: not admitting of the wound

A great Hope fell
You heard no noise
The Ruin was within
Oh cunning wreck that told no tale
And let no Witness in

The mind was built for mighty Freight
For dread occasion planned
How often foundering at Sea
Ostensibly, on Land

A not admitting of the wound
Until it grew so wide
That all my Life had entered it
And there were troughs beside

A closing of the simple lid
That opened to the sun
Until the tender Carpenter
Perpetual nail it down —

“#1123,” circa 1868, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

Open Me Carefully and a new play Tell It Slant suggest one of the deeper wounds Emily Dickinson endured may have been Susan Gilbert, a woman she loved, marrying her brother Austin Dickinson. Austin and Susan eventually moved in to the house next door, and Emily and Susan remained close; their surviving correspondence spans over 35 years.

Poems by Emily Dickinson were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 29, 2008 and Poem-a-Day April 25, 2009.

Poem-a-Day, April 25: Or every man be blind

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise

As lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

The work above is known simply as #1129 — a constant reminder of how heavily those who collected and edited Emily Dickinson‘s manuscripts posthumously influence how we experience the sequencing, punctuation, and other attributes of her poems today.

I sometimes experience the poem above in conversation with Robert Frost, who decades later asks Tellers of Truths to “Choose Something Like A Star.”

MC Emmie D is also well known for her Slant in #258, “There’s a certain Slant of light,” and for her frequent use of slant rhyme and dashes of various slants and lengths. (There’s a brilliant article by Saskia Hamilton in the most recent issue of American Poet magazine on Dickinson’s use of slant rhyme and breath that I wish I could link you to, but unfortunately it does not yet exist on the internets.)

April is National Poetry Month, and I am celebrating by emailing out my own selection of one poem per day for the duration of the month. To learn more about National Poetry Month, or to subscribe to a more official-like Poem-a-Day list, visit www.poets.org.

— Ellen

Poems by Emily Dickinson were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 29, 2008 and Poem-a-Day April 25, 2010.

Poem-a-day, April 29: dark chivalries

By Chivalries as tiny,
A Blossom, or a Book,
The seeds of smiles are planted —
Which blossom in the dark.

***

Hello friends,

Here’s something they probably neglected to mention in grade school: Many of Emily Dickinson‘s poems, like the above (circa 1858), doubled as notes or letters to her next door neighbor and sister-in-law Susan Huntington Dickinson. Emily and Susan shared a deep emotional, intellectual, and some would argue undeniably erotic connection — beginning several years before Susan married Emily’s brother Austin. For decades, the two exchanged favorite reading materials, small gifts, goods, and notes almost daily.

See also:
Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Huntington Dickinson (1998) by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith and “Hymn for Lota” by Elizabeth Bishop.

— Ellen

Poems by Emily Dickinson were also featured for Poem-a-Day April 25, 2009 and Poem-a-Day April 25, 2010.