Dave Eisinger offers some musings on Emily Dickinson:
It’s been a while since I’ve read any Dickinson poems—high school, I think. I remember liking her well enough, although she’s no T.S. Eliot or Byron. The piece that I can immediately cite as being hers is the classic “I could not stop for Death.” I was strangely pleased to find it wasn’t included in this first section of our assigned reading.
So, what did I find upon my reintroduction to Emily Dickinson after five years or so? Here’s an unordered list: sentimentalism, whimsy, confusion (on my part), morbidity, humor/playfulness, darkness, and a sense of natural religiosity somewhere between romanticism and transcendentalism…with a looming specter of death, of course.
Dickinson’s style, content, and emotions seem to go all over the place in this collection (the Dover Thrift edition containing 109 selected poems), but on reflection, that’s not so surprising. Granted, the editors chose which poems would go where, but even were that not the case, the variety demonstrates that Dickinson was writing expressively. Over her lifetime she penned between seventeen and eighteen hundred pieces, each of them obviously capturing her thoughts and mood at the time.
This is markedly different from many other poets—since I’ve mentioned Eliot already, consider that his style and tone are generally consistent throughout his works, with only a few exceptions (Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats being the major one, but let’s attribute that to his British-i-zation). Byron is always witty, sarcastic, or Romantically profound. But Dickinson is…well, see the list above.
Her sentimentalism and whimsy is evident in such works as “Wild nights!” (p. 5), “A Day” (p. 11), or “The Letter” (p. 21), with her sense of humor coming to light as well. “Wild nights!” in particular seems like one of those poems that, were it written now, would be met with a response of, “Really? Is this mushy crap all you’ve got?”
The answer, of course, is a solid no—Dickinson has much more to offer. Her darker works are interesting, because when reading them I don’t always realize her shadowy undertones until I’m a good way in. Here’s an example (p. 24):
The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor
The liberty to die.
The image that comes to mind here is one of self-destruction, of eagerly pursuing something that eventually leads to a downfall or despair of some type. If you’ll indulge my reference to pop culture, it actually reminds me a bit of Tony Stark in Iron Man 2. But that’s beside the point.
In other places Dickinson is more straightforward in her melancholy: “Heaven is what I cannot reach!”, “In Shadow,” “The Battlefield,” and “There’s been a death in the opposite house” all make for prime examples. The last is particularly poignant, probably because it describes an event that could happen in any time and any place, making it relevant to any reader. It also wonderfully captures the shock and emotional whirlwind of such times, using words like “numb,” “mechanically,” and “stiffly” before she reaches “the dark parade” (p. 16).
This poet is obviously in a different place than the one writing “Wild nights!” In my mind, this is how I know Dickinson is genuine. She wrote for herself, and she meant what she wrote. She wasn’t trying to appeal to a market, woo anyone (*cough* Byron *cough*), contribute to the literary canon, or anything else. Mushy as it is, I can believe that Emily must have been feeling some sort of rapture, thrill, or contentment when she wrote “Wild nights!” And I can believe she was numbed by a neighbor’s death when I read “There’s been a death”, because she writes so freely and without inhibition whether she’s musing on hope or on death.
I should note that at points, Dickinson simply confused me with her rapid-fire metaphors (if that’s what they are). Take these first six lines of “Memorials,” for instance:
Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly
To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool…
The first three lines? Took me forever to figure them out. The rest of the poem makes sense and deals very nicely with dead people’s last creations. I couldn’t reconcile those lines with the rest of the poem—they seemed so disjointed. Turns out she just had weird syntax and was messing with conjugation, and therefore my mind.
In other poems, she simply throws so many images at me that it’s hard to find much cohesion in them: “I know a place where summer strives,” for example (p. 13). Or maybe it’s just that in reading twenty-five pages of poetry, I didn’t let them simmer for long enough. Appreciation of poetry certainly does require simmering. As a sidenote, she also seems to have a thing for noon—it keeps coming up in poem after poem.
In sum, though, I found my revisiting of Emily Dickinson to be a very enjoyable exercise, and although I wouldn’t put her in my personal book of Greats, she’s definitely an American poet worthy of careful study, simmering reflection, and respect.
Favorite poems thus far: “Hope,” “In The Garden,” “There’s been a death,” “The Battlefield,” “The Wind’s Visit,” and “I died for beauty.”
I'm glad you noticed the way ED's poems can shift and twist from line to line or strophe to strophe. If you're prepared for the possibility it's easier to read her. Your last point about "simmering" may be the hardest part about reading any poetry: slowing down, staying focused, rereading, analyzing, and reflecting.
ReplyDeleteExcept that of course the engine of academia doesn't afford us the time to actually enjoy what we do :P
ReplyDeleteI also noticed the sheer breadth of experience she covers in her poetry, which makes me wonder just how she knew about so much despite the fact that she secluded herself... I wonder if she wrote based on whatever she was reading at the time and what it stirred in her? If consistency is actually a mark of experience like we see in Eliot and Byron whereas Dickenson mostly operated off of musing/curiosity/fantasy and that is reflected in how disjointed or broad her writing seems?
I have no evidence for any of this but it's still fun to think about :)
I found it interesting that you used "whimsy" to describe some of her poetry. Originally that wouldn't have been a word I would use, but after rereading the poems you cited, I can now see what you mean. There does to be a whimsical quality to them, particularly in "Wild Nights!".
ReplyDeleteConsidering most of Dickinson's poems were discovered after her death, it makes sense that she truly wrote from a genuine place. She definitely conveys an insecure, protected personality which would translate to her cautiousness of public opinion.
ReplyDeleteDave, I got a different vibe from "The Heart Asks Pleasure First." Instead of being a poem on self-destruction, I considered it as a self-reflection through the natural progression of life. At the beginning, we pursue our pleasures. We begin to understand the concept of pain and in the end, the only relief to that is death. I feel as if this poem is just a very straightforward interpretation of human experience through life.
I personally have a great appreciation for her diversity within the content of her poems. As you said, even the darkest ones are interesting and their deepest undertones are not always discovered through the first read. Yes there are poems in her collection that may not have made it through the "hoops of poetic academia", but again as you said, her versatility and skill outweigh the occasional poem here or there that may not seem like "significant" poetry. She writes everything from emotionally gripping poems to light and airy snippets of text.
ReplyDeleteWonderful essay =)