The Emily Project

November left

December 1, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

The night was wide, and furnished scant
With but a single star,
That often as a cloud it met
Blew out itself for fear.
The wind pursued the little bush,
And drove away the leaves
November left; then clambered up
And fretted in the eaves.
No squirrel went abroad;
A dog’s belated feet
Like intermittent plush were heard
Adown the empty street.
To feel if blinds be fast,
And closer to the fire
Her little rocking-chair to draw,
And shiver for the poor,
The housewife’s gentle task.
“How pleasanter,” said she
Unto the sofa opposite,
“The sleet than May—no thee!”
~Emily Dickinson

This is a perfect poem for the start of December, in so many ways. Dickinson begins with the image of a vast night whose darkness is interrupted only by a lone star–and that star is frequently obscured by scudding clouds. With the personification of the star as fearfully extinguishing itself, the poet captures the very human sense of apprehension many of us feel as we approach the darkest day of the year.

November in this poem is like a small, disgruntled creature–it leaves, but then doesn’t, climbing up into the eaves to linger and fret. Just as there is but a lone star in the sky, there is a single living creature out on this dark, cold night–a dog, returning home late, padding almost silently along. Does plush make a sound? The speaker says it does–but it must be a sound that is all but silent. With the wind blowing, how could anyone hear that plush?

In the last two stanzas, the speaker brings us inside a home, where a houswife’s duties are to make sure the blinds are fastened against the night and weather, and to “shiver for the poor.” In the final stanza, the woman addresses “the sofa opposite”–presumably there is someone there? Her spouse? A child? A friend? Maybe a cat or dog?? She remarks that the inclement weather is more pleasant than May. It’s an interesting comment–on one hand, it’s unexpected. Of course May is more pleasant. But for the housewife, May likely means all manner of chores, while the sleet affords her the opportunity to sit, cozy by the fire.

The last line, however–or rather, the last two words–are perplexing. The housewife says that the sleet is more pleasant than May, and then adds, “no thee!” She’s addressing the sofa opposite, and if there’s someone on it, what do we make of this remark? Is she saying, “No, you are more pleasant than May,” or is she saying that sleet is more pleasant than May because there is now “no thee”? She could either be complimenting or issuing a Dickinson-style burn. I really can’t tell which one. What do you think?

Pathos!!

December 1, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels, happening that way,
This dusty heart espied;
Tenderly took it up from toil
And carried it to God.
There,—sandals for the barefoot;
There,—gathered from the gales,
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering sails.
~Emily Dickinson

Dickinson is definitely going for the pathos with this one. “A poor torn heart, a tattered heart.” Intent upon its visions, the “heart” does not see the ebbing day, the encroaching night. It slips away, into the embrace of angels who carry it to God. I don’t know what to say about this one because it seems too obvious. And maybe a little cutesy, too, compared to the angst and existential dread of which Dickinson is so capable.

This is the kind of poem that makes me really, really wonder who Dickinson was. Was she this person? Or the person who wrote about the numbness of death? Or was she both? I suppose we all contain multitudes, and all of these are her. But some of her poems are rather difficult to reconcile with other ones. This feels like the kind of poem that would have been written by Emily Dickinson, Good Christian Girl. Very different from yesterday’s, which was clearly penned by Emily Dickinson, Preacher’s Kid Gone Wild.

But hey! It wraps up a month of (largely) shipwreck poems with a reference to salvaged ships, so it’s all good.

Two worlds

November 29, 2019December 1, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

Departed to the judgment,
A mighty afternoon;
Great clouds like ushers leaning,
Creation looking on.
The flesh surrendered, cancelled,
The bodiless begun;
Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
And leave the soul alone.
~Emily Dickinson

At numerous times over the course of this year-long Emily Dickinson project, I have suspected that I am gradually becoming stupider. Some of Dickinson’s poems hit me like a flash of insight, clear and bracing. Others completely befuddle me, to the point that I wonder if I have forgotten how to word.

The first stanza of this poem is very straightforward. Of course it’s about death! The second stanza? Tricksier. Okay, death means the surrendering of the flesh, the beginning of a bodiless state. But what are the “Two worlds” that “disperse” “like audiences”? Has she named two worlds?

Maybe the two worlds are a reference to the “clouds,” representing heaven, and “Creation,” representing this life, in the first stanza. If this is the case, then what is Dickinson saying about death? That the soul after death has nothing to do with either this world or the next? It’s almost like this woman was not raised by a preacher. Or like she’s the stereotypical P.K., pushing allll the boundaries and challenging alll the beliefs.

Thanksgiving day

November 28, 2019December 1, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

ONE day is there of the series
Termed Thanksgiving day,
Celebrated part at table,
Part in memory.
Neither patriarch nor pussy, 5
I dissect the play;
Seems it, to my hooded thinking,
Reflex holiday.
Had there been no sharp subtraction
From the early sum, 10
Not an acre or a caption
Where was once a room,
Not a mention, whose small pebble
Wrinkled any bay,—
Unto such, were such assembly, 15
’T were Thanksgiving day.
~Emily Dickinson

What a weird one, Emily.

It starts out ordinarily enough. Out of all the holidays in the series of the year, Thanksgiving is one. We celebrate it with meals and with remembrance. So far so good.

“Neither patriarch nor pussy”–wtf, Emily? Neither an old man or a cat? I have no idea what she’s getting at. Somewhere between an old man and a cat?? Skipping this. Moving on. “I dissect the play.” This echoes other Dickinson poems in which she speaks of observing others as being like her own private theatrical experience (see, “The show is not the show”). Thanksgiving seems to the speaker like a “reflex holiday”–perhaps a day when one is on automatic pilot, when we go through the motions. This is an interesting take on the day, for sure, and yet one that probably resonates for many people.

In the next stanzas, the syntax completely loses me. If there hadn’t been any subtraction–any loss–then what? I am completely flummoxed by the ending. If we hadn’t ever lost anything, we wouldn’t know how to be thankful?? If we hadn’t ever been subtracted from, we wouldn’t be who we are, looking back on the past and those who were subtracted?? Emily Dickinson, is this yet another poem about death???

I’ve got nothing here. So I’ll just say this–may your Thanksgiving be a heck of a lot easier to understand than this poem.

Wrecked, solitary

November 26, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.
And when they all were seated, 5
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb.
And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul 10
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll
As all the heavens were a bell,
And Being but an ear,
And I and silence some strange race, 15
Wrecked, solitary, here.
~Emily Dickinson

This is probably one of Dickinson’s most well-known poems, particularly the first stanza, and the first line. Much has been said and written about this poem–its opening, the notion of feeling a funeral, the masterful use of repetition. Rather than focusing on the beginning, I want to pay close attention to the end, because it’s here that Dickinson brings in one of her favorite metaphors–shipwreck.

Amherst, Massachussetts is not particularly near the ocean. Yet Dickinson frequently invokes the ocean and ships in her poetry. For most of this poem, she writes about the sensation, particularly the sound, of the “funeral in my brain.” The imagery is that of a funeral, with mourners and footsteps. But then, in the very last line, she switches gears, and suddenly the speaker is “Wrecked, solitary, here.” From funeral, she moves abruptly to shipwreck. It’s a strange, transitionless shift–and yet that’s how shipwrecks must seem. Abrupt, sudden, everything expected ripped away.

Like the speaker, the reader is left shipwrecked at the end of the poem, disoriented, torn from one world and dropped suddenly in another, left alone with silence.

Crescent

November 25, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

Each that we lose takes part of us;
A crescent still abides,
Which like the moon, some turbid night,
Is summoned by the tides.
~Emily Dickinson

We are carved out, hollowed by our losses. Each one chips away a little more at us, the lost one taking part of us with them to wherever souls go. But there is never nothing left. “A crescent still abides,” a sliver of light, of hope. And maybe, like the moon, it isn’t so much that we’re taken from as we’re obscured, darkened. Maybe everything is still there–just in shadow.

Adrift!

November 24, 2019November 25, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

Adrift! A little boat adrift!
And night is coming down!
Will no one guide a little boat
Unto the nearest town?
So sailors say, on yesterday,
Just as the dusk was brown,
One little boat gave up its strife,
And gurgled down and down.
But angels say, on yesterday,
Just as the dawn was red,
One little boat o’erspent with gales
Retrimmed its masts, redecked its sails
Exultant, onward sped!
~Emily Dickinson

Another shipwreck poem for November, month of hurricanes. This one is ultimately a poem about perspective. To the sailors who discuss the shipwreck after the fact, it was a disaster, all souls lost. But to the angels who welcomed the crew to heaven, the ship’s final voyage was triumphant. It’s all in who’s looking at it.

Friendship

November 23, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

My friend must be a bird,
Because it flies!
Mortal my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a bee.
Ah, curious friend,
Thou puzzlest me!
~Emily Dickinson

This poem perfectly captures the perplexing aspects of human friendship. Friends fly away, they die, they leave, they wound. They can puzzle us infinitely, because they, like us, are human and contradictory. No one has the power to injure us quite like someone we love.

This poem appears in collections of Dickinson’s poetry with love poems, and perhaps it is one–but it could be true of any kind of human relationship.

A fame petite

November 22, 2019November 23, 2019 Pam and BrennaLeave a comment

A modest lot, a fame petite,
A brief campaign of sting and sweet
Is plenty! Is enough!
A sailor’s business is the shore,
A soldier’s—balls. Who asketh more
Must seek the neighboring life!
~Emily Dickinson

In this poem, Dickinson seems to be arguing that we should be content with what we have. A sailor’s business is sailing, a soldier’s fighting. Anyone who wants more should look elsewhere than their own life.

It’s interesting to read this poem in light of the traditional arguments that Dickinson didn’t want to be famous, that she was an introverted recluse who didn’t seek an audience for her poems. This has always felt like an odd reading to me–why would she write poetry and save it if she had no intention of putting it out into the world?

New reimaginings of Dickinson’s life seem to be challenging the notion of the reclusive poet. Though some of Dickinson’s poems seem to focus on the quiet domestic blisses and the joys of being “nobody,” I can’t help but think that she wanted her words to be read. There’s something hugely ambitious in so much of her poetry. We can probably never know for sure what she was thinking, what she really wanted, but my guess is that it wasn’t as modest or petite as the fate she advocates for in this poem.