Sleeping on the Wing Challenge: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

[Angeline]

I groan to myself every time I see Emily's name in the book. What can I say? Her poetry never speaks to me. But maybe it will to you and maybe even to me before this week is out and we spend time reading her poems and thinking about the way she writes. The writing exercise for Emily is very accessible, I think. We'll see.

First, some poems:


I Heard a Fly Buzz

I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,—and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.

*********

We Like March

We like March, his shoes are purple,
He is new and high;
Makes he mud for dog and peddler,
Makes he forest dry;
Knows the adder’s tongue his coming,
And begets her spot.
Stands the sun so close and mighty
That our minds are hot.
News is he of all the others;
Bold it were to die
With the blue-birds buccaneering
On his British sky.

*********
The Last Night That She Lived

The last night that she lived,
It was a common night,
Except the dying; this to us
Made nature different.

We noticed smallest things,—
Things overlooked before,
By this great light upon our minds
Italicized, as ’t were.

That others could exist
While she must finish quite,
A jealousy for her arose
So nearly infinite.

We waited while she passed;
It was a narrow time,
Too jostled were our souls to speak,
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot;
Then lightly as a reed
Bent to the water, shivered scarce,
Consented, and was dead.

And we, we placed the hair,
And drew the head erect;
And then an awful leisure was,
Our faith to regulate.

*********

The Cricket Sang

The cricket sang,
And set the sun,
And workmen finished, one by one,
Their seam the day upon.

The low grass loaded with the dew,
The twilight stood as strangers do
With hat in hand, polite and new,
To stay as if, or go.

A vastness, as a neighbor, came,—
A wisdom without face or name,
A peace, as hemispheres at home,—
And so the night became

*********

Because I Cout Not Stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

If you want to explore more of Dickinson's poems, here is a great resource.

 

[Angeline]

Emily Dickinson 411

Emily Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, lived a very secluded life. She was alone most of the time; she didn't know other writers. Almost no one knew she wrote poetry. She wrote her poems in the midst of doing other things. She wrote them on the backs of envelopes and on other scraps of paper. The poems were discovered, and published, only after her death. These circumstances probably have something to do with the peculiar way her poetry is written, the way it's unlike anyone else's--with its odd use of capitals, dashes and strange rhymes--and with its peculiar point of view. She seems to have been, more than other poets, writing just for herself.

_____Her way of looking at things seems, at first, innocent, like the innocence of children. But Emily Dickinson knows and feels things that children don't. Her view is not so much innocent, really, as it is gentle and resigned to the way things are. It's as if she felt that simply watching was the only thing left to do. She watches nature--trees, brooks, bees, flies, flowers, snakes, wind. She watches people. She seems even to watch herself in the same way she watches everything else--with impartial curiosity and from a distance.

_____In Emily Dickinson's poetry, the whole universe becomes very private and domestic. It is as if all of nature, all its gentle and violent forces, were noticed and wondered about with the kind of simple familiarity with which you might wonder about your neighbors. And everything that happens seems almost equally important. The arrival of winter, a storm, the coming of death gets no more space than a bird's song or a fly's buzz. This makes her poems about death seem particularly strange and chilling. Emily Dickinson seems to have become as used to death as others get used to other supposedly grand and awesome things, like the Pacific Ocean, or the midnight sun, or the Alps.

_____So, reading her poems, you may feel a bit dizzy, as if the balance of things had been changed. That balance has to do with one's feelings. The closer something is to you, the more difficult it is to be objective. It is almost impossible for most people, for instance, to consider their own deaths in a simple and objective way, as Emily Dickinson seems to in her poems. She dies and a fly buzzes--and she watches and writes.

~ excerpted from Sleeping on the Wing

 

[Angeline]

Emily Dickinson: Exercise

Write a poem that is written in somewhat the same way as "I Heard a Fly Buzz"; that is, write about something that is terribly significant to you--the end of the world, the beginning of the world, your death, your birth--and in the same poem write about something that is very insignificant--a leaf dropping, the sound of a footstep, the telephone ringing, combing your hair. Don't say what your emotions are, and don't try to make an obvious connection between what is important and what isn't. Let them simply be happening at the same time: "I heard something drop when the world began." It may help if you think about it all as having happened a long time ago--if you're thinking of another century, you can probably calmly and objectively imagine both a rose blooming and a volcano erupting. Great distances of time and space make everything seem to even out.

_____Try using very short lines and very simple words. Use dashes and extra capital letters if they seem inspiring.

~ excerpted from Sleeping on the Wing

 

[normal jean]

oh lord

I despise this nutty bitch and her work.

okay, heres my poem


I am human, poor me

I will die one day, but until
I do, I will complain

and pity myself

I am human, poor me

~~~~~

( looking forward to next week )

 

[AnonAndAnon]

It was a lawn-mower I heard,
Twelve years ago,
The day I first lost my heart.

He let go my hand,
Said a piping "By Dad,"
Then set off up the walk.

First day he was such a stinker,
Fought and fought his mother,
Clung to the kindergarten door-jam,
Wept and shrieked and stamped -
Left his mother a total wreck.

Next day was my turn
To walk him up to school.
I tried to act calm
I tried to act matter of fact.

We passed a lawn crew
With a riding mower
Its roar waned and waxed.

He said, "By Dad,"
And marched on up the walk.
Just as easy as that.
I watched each step he took,
He didn't look back.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

oh lord

I despise this nutty bitch and her work.

okay, heres my poem


I am human, poor me

I will die one day, but until
I do, I will complain

and pity myself

I am human, poor me

~~~~~

( looking forward to next week )

Hee hee! I agree thoroughly, doll. She makes me crazy. But I'll try. Maybe.

Bet my first seventeen will be parodies, though. Do parodies count?

bj

 

[Anschul]

Thank you.

Hi all.

I've been lurking in this site,
Too intimidated to try to write.
But NJ said what I have thought
Since in eighth grade I was taught

That liking this stuff is so important
That if I didn't, then I can't
understand poetry. What's the use
Of arguing. I'd rather read Dr. Seuss.

Thank you Normal Jean. Thank you.
Regards, and keep writing the few
Wonderful words I love to read.
And please, no more E.D. She's dead.
Thank God.
Anschul.

 

[normal jean]

Hi all.

I've been lurking in this site,
Too intimidated to try to write.
But NJ said what I have thought
Since in eighth grade I was taught

That liking this stuff is so important
That if I didn't, then I can't
understand poetry. What's the use
Of arguing. I'd rather read Dr. Seuss.

Thank you Normal Jean. Thank you.
Regards, and keep writing the few
Wonderful words I love to read.
And please, no more E.D. She's dead.
Thank God.
Anschul.

and I thought people would hate me for speaking my mind

a for you

 

[AnonAndAnon]

that description of her has to be condescending.

she went to Amherst academy and spent a year at Mt Holyoke so she was hardly uneducated. she read some of her poetry to friends and sent it around in her letters.

its hardly a crime not to know any writers. most people don't.

her poems have the same metre as the hymns she'd've sung in church.

many of those poems are very pretty and many of them aren't about death even.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

that description of her has to be condescending.

she went to Amherst academy and spent a year at Mt Holyoke so she was hardly uneducated. she read some of her poetry to friends and sent it around in her letters.

its hardly a crime not to know any writers. most people don't.

her poems have the same metre as the hymns she'd've sung in church.

many of those poems are very pretty and many of them aren't about death even.

Y'know, you've raised some good points, and you make me regret my attitude a bit. It's that Yellow Rose of Texas thing, mostly. But then I remember that she wasn't out there trying to publish herself; she wasn't even interested in having her poems seen, or critiqued, or published. she wasn't interacting and arguing with other poets, or going to slams, or seeking any fame or awards. She may even be upset that everyone is paying so much attention to her these days.

I will try to be a little more respectful, given that context.

bj

 

[Eluard]

Y'know, you've raised some good points, and you make me regret my attitude a bit. It's that Yellow Rose of Texas thing, mostly. But then I remember that she wasn't out there trying to publish herself; she wasn't even interested in having her poems seen, or critiqued, or published. she wasn't interacting and arguing with other poets, or going to slams, or seeking any fame or awards. She may even be upset that everyone is paying so much attention to her these days.

I will try to be a little more respectful, given that context.

bj

Most of this is completely wrong too (ED seems to have a lot of myths that have grown up about her!). She was interested in being published and actively sought it. When her reputation grew she took some pride in her growing fame, and developed a relaxed attitude in dealing with her publisher. She was not the isolated yokel writing for herself that many make her out to be. People might appreciate ED a lot more if they knew something about her.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Most of this is completely wrong too (ED seems to have a lot of myths that have grown up about her!). She was interested in being published and actively sought it. When her reputation grew she took some pride in her growing fame, and developed a relaxed attitude in dealing with her publisher. She was not the isolated yokel writing for herself that many make her out to be. People might appreciate ED a lot more if they knew something about her.

Clearly I need to read up a bit. However, I did find it interesting that the on-line sources say that she published very little, that a few pieces might have been published without her permission, that editors often changed her work quite radically, that she often published anonymously and that in general she wasn't all het up about getting her name in lights. I think it can be generalized that she wasn't screaming for a Pulitzer. For that, I greatly respect her, even if I'm not all that fond of her work.

bj

 

[normal jean]

Y'know, you've raised some good points, and you make me regret my attitude a bit. It's that Yellow Rose of Texas thing, mostly. But then I remember that she wasn't out there trying to publish herself; she wasn't even interested in having her poems seen, or critiqued, or published. she wasn't interacting and arguing with other poets, or going to slams, or seeking any fame or awards. She may even be upset that everyone is paying so much attention to her these days.

I will try to be a little more respectful, given that context.

bj

Darling, you don't have to change your feelings just because someone disagrees with you. One can always examine that validity what the other person has stated, but that doesn't mean it is gospel or is the only opinion that matters.That has been my problem with you, just a teeny bit, but you always seem to try to make yourself into someone else, a version of you, that everyone likes and honey, you are adored!

You really don't need to worry that you are being judged by your likes and dislikes and when you makeover yourself, to suit others, you lose yourself! You lose your very own, unique talented voice You deserve better than that for yourself.

You have a right to your own thoughts feelings and opinions and it seems to me that anon and anon are just voicing theirs. Nothing that person has stated will ever change my mind about E.D. It seems to me that you are a very interesting person, but , and I am trying so hard to be tactful. I never once said or implied that she ( emily D.) was not educated. I never said anything derogatory about her because my opinion is just that, mine, and it is ONLY an opinion. see, there goes that educated versus uneducated poetic snobbery that champ referred to ( in an earlier thread) and it does exist in this world.

I suffered through that humiliation here in this forum a loooong time ago, and when I saw that my poetry was accepted, and published by some pretty good places, some excellent, in fact, I realized, so what, I have enough college credits that if I took 3 more math classes, I would have a B.S. in microbiology, but I have taken 14 classes in English and Literature. I started college to learn, never with the sole intention of gaining some piece of paper that says I am smart, lol.

But what I did, was take classes that inspired me, things I enjoyed learning... steinbeck did the same thing, as many other published respected writes also have done.


I don't like Emily, and I don't care if my opinion differs from someone else's, I am not here so people will love me, I am not in desperate ned of people sucking up to me or kissing my arse; I find people like that rather shallow and condescending, to use anon and anon's description, and when someone, ( anyone) changes their opinion just because someone else disagrees, well, it causes me to lose any respect that I ever had for them ...makes that person seem wishy washy and insecure... it is difficult for me to figure where that person stands, therefore they seem like a butt kisser who really has no interests in his/her own poetic growth.

And, a person who is obviously straddling a fence, waiting for the approval from that "other" person causes me to not be able to respect that writer in any sense at all.... you are better than that and have enough talent that you should be able to write and think on your own, without worrying what people think!

and dear sweet BJ, you deserve to be recognized for your own individual voice without allowing other's opinions define who you are and what you write.

 

[Angeline]

Interesting responses in this thread.

El, I don't know if the info I've excerpted is right or complete or whatever. It's what Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell are saying in this book. It is written for high school poetry teachers, I believe, and meant to be an introduction, so maybe they are presenting very general information.

And NJ and Bijou, I know believe me I do. There are a few writers in this compendium, like ED, whose poems make me wince, but the exercises are what it's all about for me, not my preference (or we would have done Yeats straight off lol).

What interests me about this week's exercise is the idea of writing something where you give equal weight to the sublime and the ridiculous--and you do it without dragging your emotions into it. I'm interested to see where I go when I try to do that with a poem.

To me the whole point of this thing is not to emulate these writers--if I think about that too much I just want to blush trying to put my poems up next to Wallace Stevens', for example, but to try out the poetic devices that characterize them in my own voice. This is like piano scales for me, exercising a muscle and trying to push away from what I would normally do in a poem. Idon't know how successful I am at that thus far, but it fascinates me to try.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Darling,

***very sweet things***
and dear sweet BJ, you deserve to be recognized for your own individual voice without allowing other's opinions define who you are and what you write.

You're a doll, but I'm really not worried about what people think of me as such. Had I been, I'd have left here a long time ago.

I do worry about two things: being misinformed/ undereducated about something, and slanting the opinions of someone who ought to be forming opinions without my biased viewpoint distracting them.

No, my opinions are my own, but I also try to stay flexible, just in case I'm wrong and would change them given better information, and I do my best to prevent them from getting in someone else's way. But it's not about pleasing anyone. I'd have been burned at the stake long ago if that's all it was.

It's funny, any time I get all dogmatic about something like Emily Dickinson or Jesus, it sets off a little warning bell that maybe I need to settle down and learn something. But please don't worry about my self-esteem, darlin'. I'm not here to seek approval. I'm here to feed hungry people and talk to sexy poets about poetry and sex. And to occasionally get a serious, attentive review when I formally submit a poem. That's it, really.

And of course to watch the funny monkeys.

I hope your day is being kind and peaceful. And I didn't want to interrupt your thread, but I really liked the two recent pieces you put up in Bug-Day Afternoon.

xo
bj

 

[Eluard]

Clearly I need to read up a bit. However, I did find it interesting that the on-line sources say that she published very little, that a few pieces might have been published without her permission, that editors often changed her work quite radically, that she often published anonymously and that in general she wasn't all het up about getting her name in lights. I think it can be generalized that she wasn't screaming for a Pulitzer. For that, I greatly respect her, even if I'm not all that fond of her work.

bj

I should have been a little more circumspect. Apologies. One of ED's first contacts was with Thomas Higginson who had written an article in the Atlantic Monthly on Advice to Prospective Young Authors. ED sent him some poems and asked if they "breathed". He seems to have responded with a mixture of criticism and encouragement, but asked to see more. She duly sent him more. After this she stepped back from seeking widespread recognition and wrote her anti-fame poems. She certainly circulated poems to her friends and she became increasingly well-known. I guess it's a moot point as to whether this coy attitude was really fishing for attention while pretending not to.

 

[Angeline]

You're a doll, but I'm really not worried about what people think of me as such. Had I been, I'd have left here a long time ago.

I do worry about two things: being misinformed/ undereducated about something, and slanting the opinions of someone who ought to be forming opinions without my biased viewpoint distracting them.

No, my opinions are my own, but I also try to stay flexible, just in case I'm wrong and would change them given better information, and I do my best to prevent them from getting in someone else's way. But it's not about pleasing anyone. I'd have been burned at the stake long ago if that's all it was.

It's funny, any time I get all dogmatic about something like Emily Dickinson or Jesus, it sets off a little warning bell that maybe I need to settle down and learn something. But please don't worry about my self-esteem, darlin'. I'm not here to seek approval. I'm here to feed hungry people and talk to sexy poets about poetry and sex. And to occasionally get a serious, attentive review when I formally submit a poem. That's it, really.

And of course to watch the funny monkeys.

I hope your day is being kind and peaceful. And I didn't want to interrupt your thread, but I really liked the two recent pieces you put up in Bug-Day Afternoon.

xo
bj

I love it when I see people having strong reactions to a poet or to writing a certain way because it means they are feeling something powerful that will likely come out in the poetry. I think learning and growth can come from that.

And I'm not saying that to you or NJ or anyone in particular, just reacting to some of these posts.

 

[Eluard]

It's an interesting thing about her that she wrote most of her poems before she was 35 — and all of the good stuff before then. For the last twenty years of her life she seemed to be not seeking fame and not writing very much either.

 

[Liar]

Ah, Dickinson. Another poet that makes me uneasy. But for different reasons than O'Hara did. I'll spare you my crap analysis of why. It wouldn't make much sense outside my head anyway.

Just suffice to say that it has nothing to do with her history or social life or commersial success. I don't really buy into the getting-to-know-the-poet philosophy. If a text doesn't carry itself outside of the context in which it was written, it's not a text, it just plays one on TV.

So my reaction is not on Dickinson's life, but on gut level when reading her lines. And those lines just does not seem to rhyme with my brain. Why is yet to be understood.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

It's an interesting thing about her that she wrote most of her poems before she was 35 — and all of the good stuff before then. For the last twenty years of her life she seemed to be not seeking fame and not writing very much either.

*bijou explores suicide options*

 

[Eluard]

O.K here is a positive thing to say about Emily Dickinson — who I have never been able to get into either.

A few years ago a friend of mine lost her husband and she was deep in grief for two years. She said at that time that she read a lot of ED's work because she was the only writer who REALLY understood grief.

 

[Angeline]

O.K here is a positive thing to say about Emily Dickinson — who I have never been able to get into either.

A few years ago a friend of mine lost her husband and she was deep in grief for two years. She said at that time that she read a lot of ED's work because she was the only writer who REALLY understood grief.

Maybe that speaks to the rather zen attitude ED seems to have about death: the way she treats it as an experience no more or less grand or awful than any other experience like a fly buzzing or a rose blooming.

I'm going to read more of her with that link to Bartleby. I just wish I could get that awful singsong rhythm out of my head when I read her. I find I have to force myself to read past line breaks and go with the sentence rhythm or it sounds like nursery rhyme to me.

 

[Anschul]

Yes, Read E.D. That Way.

Maybe that speaks to the rather zen attitude ED seems to have about death: the way she treats it as an experience no more or less grand or awful than any other experience like a fly buzzing or a rose blooming.

I'm going to read more of her with that link to Bartleby. I just wish I could get that awful singsong rhythm out of my head when I read her. I find I have to force myself to read past line breaks and go with the sentence rhythm or it sounds like nursery rhyme to me.

Angeline, I think you found the answer. Don't try to hear the rhythm. Read E.D. like prose, see the sentences, not the rhymes. You will understand her better. You might also want to end your life.
By the way, am I the only one who sees the irony in calling her "E.D.?"
Anschul

 

[Tzara]

First try. I'm not sure this is right. Interesting, but difficult, exercise.

I Was Eating a Cheeseburger

I was eating a cheeseburger
When you died, because
I was hungry and the grill
At the hospital had nothing

But bad food so I knew
The doctor's frown, approaching,
Was not because of fat and grease,
Though it was about that too.​

 

[normal jean]

Believe me, I understand grief. I lost both parents within 7 months of each other, 3 months after my mom passed, my cousin hung himself and six months later, my granny died from breast cancer.


what bothers me about ED, is that is death, grief and unhappiness seems to be all she saw in life, and never seemed to have any hope. I cant get into anyone's writing who has not even the tiniest glimpse of joy or hope in his/her poetic voice. sorry, and of course, it is not a slam to anyone who gets something from her, then I would say to them, good! Everyone here, has his/her own opinion and I never said her work wouldn't or couldn't speak to others, her work just made my heart feel worse.

It is one thing to understand grief, but a horse of a different color when all someone does is wallow in that grief. I felt bad for the woman, actually.


I know that when things are bad, in the grief-stricken sense, that if anything can help someone who has lost a loved one, or a love, well, if she helped, that is wonderful. But I never got anything from her but hopelessness and despair.

my glass is always half full.... regardless how bad the circumstances...

and I wish that for anyone reading that woman.

and I am looking forward to reading the replies of those who choose to write on this one, I just know I wouldn't want t o come up with anything so desperate and sad. In other words, I have no desire to put myself in the place I would have to go to emulate her "style".

best wishes, all you wonderful poets