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ALTER? When the hills do

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ALTER? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.

Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew;
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!

Emily Dickinson

The first thing I love about this poem is the enjambment, which is a fancy way of saying that I like the way the lines continue over the line breaks, especially after that first hard stop of “Alter? When the hills do.” We start off with a strong statement and a strong ending, and then the other three lines of the quatrain continue from line 2.

But the first stanza is telling us things that the speaker will not do: she will not alter, and she will not falter. She’s with you until the end, basically. Now, in the second stanza, she’s using the word “surfeit” as a verb–we know this because she’s continuing the pattern set up in the first stanza–and “surfeit” is not a verb that most of us use commonly.

According to a quick search, the verb means wanting to be done with something because you’ve done that thing too much. Again, the speaker is telling us something she won’t do: she will not get tired of the friend, just like daffodils won’t get tired of the dew.

I like this poem as a sweet nod to friendship. Will I ever change, and not want you as a friend? Nope. Will I ever be unsteady in supporting you? Also no. Am I going to get tired of you? That’s just ridiculous.

Climate Change Denier

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XXX

FAITH is fine invention
For gentlemen who see;
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency!

Emily Dickinson

Do you catch the immense shade with the inclusion of the word “gentlemen,” too? Yeah. We’re just going to leave this poem here and let it speak for itself.

Prompt: I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—

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I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—
Life’s little duties do—precisely—
As the very least
Were infinite—to me—

I put new Blossoms in the Glass—
And throw the old—away—
I push a petal from my gown
That anchored there—I weigh
The time ‘twill be till six o’clock
I have so much to do—
And yet—Existence—some way back—
Stopped—struck—my ticking—through—
We cannot put Ourself away
As a completed Man
Or Woman—When the Errand’s done
We came to Flesh—upon—
There may be—Miles on Miles of Nought—
Of Action—sicker far—
To simulate—is stinging work—
To cover what we are
From Science—and from Surgery—
Too Telescopic Eyes
To bear on us unshaded—
For their—sake—not for Ours—
Twould start them—
We—could tremble—
But since we got a Bomb—
And held it in our Bosom—
Nay—Hold it—it is calm—

Therefore—we do life’s labor—
Though life’s Reward—be done—
With scrupulous exactness—
To hold our Senses—on—

Emily Dickinson

This is a long poem to say: we are so tired of doing so much. Aren’t you tired of doing so much? Doesn’t March feel so very much like February hasn’t given up, like its jagged hooked claws are raking over your visions of frolicking in the clover and covering this up with reminders that you haven’t taken out the trash, or pruned the rosebushes, or raked the dead leaves, or paid that one bill?

Today’s prompt: write a poem about all of the things you haven’t done, and how they feel about being unfinished.

It’s all I have to bring today

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It’s all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Emily Dickinson

All I have to bring today is–everything. The dance lesson in an hour and fifteen minutes. The groceries I ordered because I have no time (or patience) to brave the plague-riddled folk in the store. The student emails that never end. The grading that has, quite frankly, become laughable. The three poems currently in edit mode in my head, and the two nonfiction essays waiting to be drafted. The partial rejection that arrived today after I sent off requested material thirteen months ago. The cold that is a slap in the face if you try to breathe outside. The daffodils I forgot to plant. The ponies holding court in the dining room floor. The broken sippy cups leaking in backpacks. Our department secretary, who has retired, and the empty office that needs filling. My coffee cup, which needs a spigot.

March, I barely know ye, and already I am weary.

The Robin

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THE robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
As April but begun.

The robin is the one
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.

Emily Dickinson

Ah, the poem where I am a bird.

How much have I been waiting and hoping for February, and its cold, dreary, infinitely rainy days, to end? How much hope have I placed in March for warmer and dryer and sunnier days?

My entire Saturday was consumed with a conference for English professors. I told my son on Friday night that I’d have to leave early, and I probably wouldn’t see him before my ride came to pick me up (too early). But he did wake up in time, and came downstairs to say bye. And then he started crying.

“I never get to see you,” he said. “You’re not supposed to have to go to work on Saturday.”

The last two Saturdays I’ve had work commitments, it’s true. And I’ve had other late evenings, too. And this absolutely broke my heart. I hugged him, and promised him that I’d play Mariokart with him when I got back. I’m going to keep that promise.

Disenchantment

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IT dropped so low in my regard
I heard it hit the ground,
And go to pieces on the stones
At bottom of my mind;

Yet blamed the fate that fractured, less
Than I reviled myself
For entertaining plated wares
Upon my silver shelf.

Emily Dickinson

I’m going to get a little bit personal with this blog: I have never had so many disinterested classes of English students in my life as I have this spring semester. Is there something in the water? Do teaching strategies that worked the last few years no longer hold interest?

I feel like the speaker in this poem every time I prepare a classroom activity, or assign a short story or poem, or walk into class. I’m ready to have a great day, and then comes the crash. Nobody wants to do the activity, very few students bothered to bring in the assignment, and there are so many absences I begin to wonder if the actual bubonic plague has descended upon my students.

And I feel like it’s my fault, too, just as the speaker feels that it’s her own fault that the plates have cracked. Maybe if I’d tried another activity, or assigned a different reading. Maybe if I were a different teacher entirely. If I had a better personality. If my students liked me more. If, if, if.

As with most Emily Dickinson poems, I don’t have an easy answer. If the speaker hadn’t placed that metaphorical plate on her metaphorical high shelf, she wouldn’t have metaphorical shards to sweep. If I didn’t care so much whether my students find learning my classes enjoyable, I guess I wouldn’t be so upset when they’re obviously Just Not That Into It.

Maybe the trick is not that we shouldn’t collect the breakable plates. The speaker isn’t suddenly switching to Corelle. The trick is to find that balance, that correct shelf, that place for everything (and everything in its place): that allows us to not ward off breaking entirely, but give fragile things their best chance.

Consecration

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PROUD of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

Emily Dickinson

Another day, another love poem that may not really be a love poem. The first thing that strikes me about this poem is the repetition: three of the four lines begin with “proud.” Given that this poem is one long sentence, that’s a lot of pride to display in such a short punch of a poem. So what’s the speaker proud of?

Firstly, she’s proud of her broken heart, “since” the unnamed lover broke it. Curious, here, is the double meaning of “since”: is the speaker proud because the lover broke her heart, or is she proud from the period of time since it has been broken?

Secondly, she’s “proud of the pain I did not feel till thee.” Sure, this is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s interesting that this is a new pain. Is she proud because this is the first time her heart has been broken, or because she’s loved deeply enough to have been deeply affected?

Thirdly, the speaker becomes entirely to attached to her rhyme scheme. “Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it” is a line that practically shouts STOP RHYMING THIS POEM. It also requires some unpacking, because the narrator is doing literary gymnastics to fit this line in her scheme. She’s proud of her night, since you, Mr. Ex, are feeding it with moons. Hold up. What?

Not only does this make little sense on first read, it also breaks the scheme set up in the first two lines. You broke my heart – past tense. You hurt my feelings – past tense. “Thou dost slake” – present tense. If the narrator is heartbroken, how is she also being slaked? The idea of being slaked means not just having something to eat or drink, but to have that foodstuff to satisfy a hunger.

But what else could night be hungry for, than light? Here the speaker is telling us that, yes, she might be in the dark, but she’s not bothered. Even though Mr. Ex–or Mr. Never Was–isn’t with her, he’s still giving off enough light to satisfy her thirst. I hate to say it, and perhaps I’m reading this wrong, but here the narrator seems like nothing more than a moth, battering herself against a light that pays her no notice.

The fourth and final line gives us our last break from repetition. No longer is the speaker proud: now, she’s professing her humility! She is entirely too humble to have any hope of passion with this person; perhaps it is her humility which is holding her at length.

I like to see it lap the miles

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Brenna and I were just settling down to a rainy afternoon conversation about a love poem which expresses, well, something less than love, when something marvelous happened. Two worlds intersected.

We are writing a daily blog about Emily Dickinson poems. The Slowdown, U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s daily poetry podcast, features an Emily Dickinson poem today. So, on this rainy day, we invite you to pull up a comfy chair, pop in some earbuds, and close your eyes for five minutes of what amounts to, basically, a guided meditation in poetry.

You can listen to today’s episode of The Slowdown here.

I like to see it lap the Miles—
And lick the Valleys up—
And stop to feed itself at Tanks—
And then—prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains—
And supercilious peer
In Shanties—by the sides of Roads—
And then a Quarry pare

To fit its sides
And crawl between
Complaining all the while
In horrid—hooting stanza—
Then chase itself down Hill—

And neigh like Boanerges—
Then—prompter than a Star
Stop—docile and omnipotent
At its own stable door—

Emily Dickinson

XI: I’ve got an arrow here

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I’VE got an arrow here;
Loving the hand that sent it,
I the dart revere.

Fell, they will say, in “skirmish”!
Vanquished, my soul will know,
By but a simple arrow
Sped by an archer’s bow.

Emily Dickinson

Easy allusions to Cupid aside, the thing that strikes me first about this poem is the action: somebody has shot an arrow, right? So why is the person who shot it relegated to only one line?

In the first stanza, the speaker has an arrow, she loves the hand that sent it, and she reveres the dart. In the second stanza, she imagines that other people will say that she has died in battle; her soul will be vanquished.

That’s a lot of time to spend on somebody who received Cupid’s arrow, and very little time spent on Cupid himself. Who shot this arrow? Why? We have to imagine that the narrator is responsive, because she’s already imagining falling (actually, literally) for the person who shot it. But she tells us nothing at all about this person.

If this doesn’t scream one-sided-romance, I don’t know what does. I’m imagining the narrator peeking out a window, furiously scribbling, “You don’t know what you do to me!” And, of course, Cupid has no idea. The speaker doesn’t tell us that he took careful aim, or that he even hit his target.

Prompt: Loyalty

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SPLIT the lark and you’ll find the music,
Bulb after bulb, in silver rolled,
Scantily dealt to the summer morning,
Saved for your ears when lutes be old.

Loose the flood, you shall find it patent,
Gush after gush, reserved for you;
Scarlet experiment! sceptic Thomas,
Now, do you doubt that your bird was true?

Emily Dickinson

Continuing in the fashion of is-this-a-love-poem poems: is this a love poem? It seems more like an I-told-you-so poem. The speaker is telling an unnamed person that music can be found inside a lark, if you split it open. The music is described beautifully–“bulb after bulb, in silver rolled”–and it persists in memory even after the lark is gone. Consider, too, what happens if we unleash a flood: it does what floods do! It floods!

The speaker then closes with an address, referring to the unnamed as a “sceptic Thomas”–slightly off from the usual “doubting Thomas” that I’m used to hearing, but the meaning is the same. Thomas, who refused to believe that the risen Jesus was, in fact, the risen Jesus, until he could feel the wounds from the cross, inspires the narrator’s own doubter: where does the lark’s music really come from? What happens if I open this dam and let the water out?

The speaker in this poem is, I believe, the lark, but that’s a discussion for another day. What I find far more interesting is the idea of questioning how a thing works, and then destroying it to find its source: and, of course, losing the thing in the process.

For today’s prompt, consider some natural phenomenon that seems magical, and which you might be able to slice through to suss out its mysteries. What happens then? What do you learn, or keep, or not?