[Susan McLean]

Emily Dickinson (revision)

When she wore white, becoming the blank page,
was that a flag that signaled her surrender
because she'd left no mark upon the age?
Discounted for her oddity and gender,
did she accept erasure, and retreat
to shut herself in drawers inside her room?
Or did she hope her hoarded words would meet
their maker's eye when white light scoured her tomb?

The shyness and despair that veiled her pride
could not conceal the glinting of her art,
which flashed like lightning through the darkened hour
of her impassioned nuptials, when the bride
of Calvary arrived with all her dower:
the locked chest where she kept her open heart.


Emily Dickinson

When she wore white, becoming the blank page,
was that a flag that signaled her surrender
because she'd left no mark upon her age?
Discounted for her oddity and gender,
did she accept erasure, and retreat
to file herself in shut drawers in her room?
Or did she hope her hoarded words would meet
their Maker's eye when white light scoured her tomb?

The shyness and despair that veiled her pride
could not conceal the glinting of her art,
which flashed like lightning through the turbid glow
of her impassioned nuptials, when the bride
of Calvary arrived, with her trousseau:
the locked chest where she kept her open heart.

[Roger Slater]

I think the sestet is a fine poem. I know this is a radical suggestion, but I'd consider letting it stand alone. The octet is not nearly as good, in my opinion, and isn't necessary.

[Susan McLean]

Roger, though I agree with you about the relative quality of the two stanzas, the poem is about Dickinson's choice to wear white, which you wouldn't know from the sestet. I think the poem benefits from having a chance to build toward a finale. Also, I want to explore the uncertainty about her motives. We can't know the answer, whatever the sestet implies.

Susan

[RCL]

The sestet also struck me as an abbreviated form Emily might like. While the octet is basically interesting interpretive biography, the sestet is a lovely echo of her poetry, a possible echo of:

The divine—is mine!
The Wife—without the Sign!
Acute Degree—conferred on me—
Empress of Calvary!
Royal—all but the Crown!
Betrothed—without the swoon

etc.

You're in great company with this one.

[Marshall Begel]

Very sad and beautiful, Susan! Thanks for bringing it.

I'm reading this as relevant to the end of her life, not thinking about work she is writing or will write, but about the legacy of things written. Did she really ask for it all to be burned? That said, my novice-reading stops at "her age" and I had to figure out if you're talking about years-since-birth, or the stylistic period she now defines.

I'm also missing the "meet their Maker's eye" - I think you mean God, but the words were created by ED. "our Maker's eye", perhaps?

[Roger Slater]

But does the poem need to be about her choice to wear white? I don't think it does, especially since the speculation you offer strikes me as obviously wrong. I mean, who knows? But I don't think she was wearing it as a flag of surrender, nor do I think the other questions you ask in S1 are particularly incisive or accurate.

You've conceded that the second stanza is stronger than the first, so for me the only question is whether you feel S2 could stand alone. The goal is to write a good poem, and if it turns out to be a different poem than you envisioned when you set out, so be it. At least that's my philosophy, but I hardly ever write a poem because I have something in particular to say. I just want the poem to be as good as possible.

If you use S2 by itself, you could retitle to something like "Emily Dickinson Wears White".

[Michael Cantor]

I actually preferred the first stanza. The second strikes me as trying too hard to be poetical, and turbid glow really turned me off. Stylistically, two stanzas seem to be written at different times, and I wonder it it makes more sense to regard the octet and sestet as two related but separate poems. Surely, the world can live without one more sonnet, and splitting them would bring you one poem closer to having enough for another collection.

The only nit I have is that the meter seems a bit chancy in S1L6. I'd suggest either cutting "shut" or rewriting the line as to shut herself in drawers in her room. (I read drawers as two syllables.)

[W T Clark]

We dream - it is good we are dreaming -
It would hurt us - were we awake -
But since it is playing - kill us,
And we are playing - shriek -
What harm? Men die - Externally -5
It is a truth - of Blood -
But we - are dying in Drama -
And Drama - is never dead -
Cautious - We jar each other -
And either - open the eyes -10
Lest the Phantasm - prove the mistake -
And the livid Surprise
Cool us to Shafts of Granite -
With just an age - and name -
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian -15
It’s prudenter - to dream -


It is maybe prudenter to not write but read Dickinson. Faced with such poems, most of our own work will seem rather banal and arrogant in proportion. I fear this is the case here.

[John Riley]

Never mind.

[Susan McLean]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have posted a revised version.

Ralph, yes, that poem was one of the ones I had in mind as I wrote this one. She has a whole series of Calvary poems.

Marshall, I have changed "her age" to "the age" to try to avoid an unintentional ambiguity. With "their Maker's eye" I was trying to be ambiguous, suggesting both that her words might be read by God (whom she did not necessarily believe in) at a resurrection that she also doubted, or that she was the maker who might see her own words again. I have tried decapitalizing "Maker" to see whether the ambiguity comes across better that way.

Roger, white was one of ED's obsessions. I want it to be part of the poem. The point of all the questions is not to convince the reader of the truth of any of the explanations, but just of the mystery about her choice. The shortened version of the poem doesn't appeal to me.

Michael, I got rid of "turbid glow," and I also thought "trousseau" might sound too trivial, so it went, too. In my family "drawers" is one syllable, but I can see that it is ambiguous, so I have used a construction that could be an iamb or an anapest depending on which pronunciation people choose.

Cameron, I have both read and taught Dickinson's poems. I'm not trying to sound like Dickinson, just to write about her.

John, we all have our own Dickinsons. I do not see myself as emphasizing her victimhood. Her allusions to Calvary are right in the poems, and there are many ways to read them.

Susan