Okay. Maybe the first topic was a little intense. How about an ice breaker? Why do you like Emily Dickinson?

emily is my hero. she was a brilliant linguist who manipulated words in the english language like no one else before or after her. practically each word in her poems can be read in multiple ways (they say her favorite book was the dictionary) -- everything a clever double/triple entendre. she understood and so perfectly conveyed that "much madness is divinest sense." the poem "a first day's night had come--" also so aptly expresses the double-edged sword of madness/brilliance. for these few meager reasons and a million more, i'm a huge fan.

I feel like she is living in a little corner of my brain and writing poems just for me! Okay, so obviously this is not true, but for every thought, emotion and speculation I have ever had, there is an Emily Dickinson poem that speaks to it. Her imagery and language make it all so beautiful. I've only just been recently introduced to her work, as I am taking a graduate course on her complete works this semseter. It was love at first sight!

Answer in a poem:


Emily D.

Thanks for the dash,
Your Element --
Your form unlashing flow.
You took some
From your stash each day --
Then off you’d go.

Thanks for the seat
You shared with me
Beside your upstairs window.
You showed each Nobody
What startled silence
Has to show.

You had no audience
To clap or cheer.
Those flashing hands
Were not your goal --
Their noisy thunder
Dashed by poems
Passing quietly
From soul to soul.

she wrote terse, punchy and powerful verse. parting is my fave. it's a good example of touching on a meaningful subject without excess. she makes good use of contrast and irony and it is refreshing to read something deep without all the filler that is so common in poetry.

Emily was inconvenient. She was everything that the canon, at that time, could not endure. As a matter of fact- she was quite a few things that women, at the time, were not. We can extol the fascinating aspects of her prose, from bending (breaking) technique to exploratory content- but there's one aspect that makes -Emily- adorable, her humility. There was a brilliant mind in her delicate little frame, perhaps troubled, perhaps deviant, but capable of a clarity of vision that I can hardly begin to understand- much less pray emulate. She didn't write like the literary whores of today, or the pompous "laureate" sell-outs that were her forefathers- for recognition and extrinsic reward. We, you and I, were never supposed to read any of it. So any time that I pick up a Collected Works- I feel like I'm party to a trust, or learning a secret. But always- reading my life.

the first poem i ever read (which my mother had framed and hung on my wall ever so wisely)—'if i can stop one heart from breaking'—i firmly believe altered the course of my life. i have always felt strongly connected to her. we share the same birthday! i spent several days in amherst absorbing all that i could of her environment, her presence there is huge. her words are stunning. she is my poetic heart and soul.

Short lines deceive the eye - the content within a few words is extensive and always worthy of research.

A dictionary is always at my side when I read her poems, as should other texts regarding geology, and the sciences.

Her poems are challenging, not because of complete obsurity, but because of their non-colloquiality.

shes reminds me of a feminist. i think that's how you spell it? :p.