Emily Dickinson (1830-1886): Inspiration Today!
by Marie Delgado Travis
As a child, I delighted in Emily Dickinson’s image of a railroad train:
I like to see it lap the Miles –
And lick the Valleys up –
(Poem 585)
I still hear the train chug along (onomatopoeia). It “neighs” and “complains” (personification) “in horrid – hooting stanza” (alliteration). Sentence structure is altered, e.g.,” supercilious peer” (instead of “peer superciliously”). Quarries are “pared” like apples, so that the train can “fit its Ribs / And crawl between” (metaphors).
Emily’s signature use of dashes and exclamation points give her work a “breathless” quality. There are interesting contradictions, too. The train, for example, comes to a halt “docile and omnipotent / At its own stable door.” (underlining mine). “Stable,” instead of “station,” reminds us again of the animal motif.
Now that I have tried my own hand at poetry, I see many other lessons in Emily’s poetry, as well. She was a prolific writer, penning almost 1,800 poems, most within an eight year period from 1858 to 1865. Fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. This did not deter her: “I shall keep singing / Birds will pass me / On their way to Yellower Climes...” (250).
Her poems flutter between hope and despair, but generally point to: “Hope ... that thing with feathers --/ That perches in the soul....” (254).
I can wade Grief
Whole Pools of it --
I’m used to that –
But the least push of Joy
Breaks up my feet –
And I tip – drunken –
(252).
Her relationship with nature is spiritual, almost mystical, “Bring me the sunset in a cup...” (28). Hers is an unconventional religion: “In the name of the Bee -- / And of the Butterfly -- / And of the Breeze – Amen!” (18).
Inebriate of Air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew --
Reeling – thro endless summer days –
From inns of Molten Blue.
(214).
“Molten Blue” is an excellent example of synaesthesia, combining unrelated senses (tactile / visual).
Like many of us, Emily goes from moral certainty, “I know that He exists. / Somewhere – in Silence –“(338) to a playful, “You are sure there’s such a person / as a “Father”-- in the sky --.”
She can be erotic in just a few lines: (note repetition, capitalization, cadence):
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our Luxury!
(249).
And, in the same poem, “Might I but moor – Tonight – in Thee!” It is sadly apparent, however, that her passion is not reciprocated:
Heart! We will forget him!
You and I – tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave –
I will forget the light!
(47).
Speaking to an abstraction, incidentally, is an “apostrophe.” The same poem reveals her sensitivity and vulnerability,
When you have done, pray tell me.
That I may straight begin!
Haste! lest while you’re lagging
I remember him!
Emily is, in reality, a misfit: a woman not quite in keeping with her time and her puritanical New England surroundings. She says with wry humor, “Perhaps the “Kingdom of Heaven’s” changed – / I hope the “Children” there / Won’t be “new fashioned” when I come – And laugh at me and stare --.” (70).
But she is, in my opinion, the “new fashioned” one. And while fame eludes her, at least in her lifetime, she isn’t afraid to make fun of herself and her reader:
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – Too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
(288)
One of the most touching passages I’ve ever read is her self-description:
My hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.
The image is striking, almost photographic. Her hair is natural, not smoothly coiffed -- perhaps even a bit unkempt, -- the hair, perhaps, of someone less interested in external appearance than in her inner life.
The simile of the sherry in the glass is also remarkable. The color of her eyes is wine-brown or amber, depending on the type of sherry. A play of light on the glass and there is fluidity, movement, life.
The sherry is rejected. The guest “leaves” the glass, without knowing perhaps how “valuable and fine” it is. It is possibly too “sweetly delicate” for his plebian palate to appreciate. Other interpretations are equally valid, for the two phrases are rich. They leave one thinking, perhaps a poem’s highest calling.
Emily’s world consists of the change of seasons in her back yard (“The maple wears a grayer scarf,” 12) and exotic places she visits in books (“My Caspian – thee!”- 212). She can speak volumes on the ongoing Civil War, merely through the use of colors:
A slash of Blue –
A sweep of Gray –
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky --”
(204).
Even her constant obsession with death could be charming:
“Twas just this time, last year, I died.
I know—I heard the corn,
When I was carried by the Farms –
It had the Tassels on.”
(445)
My Poet’s Challenge is to open to the Index of First Lines of Emily’s poems and choose a provocative line. Write a short poem on the theme, without first checking Emily’s. Then compare both, enjoying both Emily’s genius and your own cleverness. Some possibilities (there are many, many more):
Ah, Moon and star (240)
There is a pain so utter, (599)
The lamp burns sure within (233).
Here is mine:
The most pathetic thing I do
Is wait long into night for you.
You, will-o’-wisp, can do
As you choose—
I – Butterfly –
Have that Luxury, too!
Emily’s poem shows her virtuosity:
The most pathetic thing I do
Is play I hear from you –
I make believe until my Heart
Almost believes it too....
(1290).
My reference for the above poems and their enumeration, spelling, grammar, etc. is Johnson, Thomas H., The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (New York: Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company, 1960), 770 pp. Her self-description is found at www.bartleby.com
To a Lost Lover
by Marie Delgado Travis
I lingered on
The shore alone,
Hair tousled softly
By the ocean breeze.
The opal sea
-- Jealous,
No doubt, of the
Blue depths
Of his eyes --
Had claimed
My lover
As her own
Many years
Before.
Invoking his spirit,
I asked if he still
Remembered.
And the sea
Began to churn
In beveled colors.
Blind Homer himself
Would have been
Dazzled by the
Foam-white and
Wine orchids
Shimmering
In the rosy
Sunset.
I knew then
For certain.
My Odysseus
Never left me.
And I have
Remained
His true
Penelope.
ROSEBUD
by Marie Delgado Travis
*I would have loved
To paint the walls
Of my room
A pretty pink,
But they were
City housing project white
And there was nothing
I could do.
I would have loved
To dress in white for you,
But I was tainted,
Even before
My heart could bloom.
Petals.
Muffled screams.
Lead paint.
Caution.
Toxic.
