[A. E. Stallings]

The Millay thread got a little sidetracked on the subject of Emily Dickinson. I suppose there is always the temptation to hold other American woman poets up to Dickinson to compare. (I take it also that her stock here is a little lower than it is in the poetry world at large?) I will admit that, though I love her work, she does sometimes leave me cold--(the top of my head taken off, but my heart largely untouched)--yet, I think we must confess her to be one of only a handful of truly great and original poets that America has produced.

Her originality is not so much in her prosody or punctuation--slant rime entered the language at least as early as the Great Vowel shift which divorced "love" from "prove." To a certain extent she follows the conventions of the time--but takes them to an extreme not seen before. Her originality is in a whole world view, a turn of mind.

This is one of my favorites--(principally, I think, for line 3 which I only wish I had written!)--in her usual ballad meter (4,3,4,3--rimed x,a,x,a). Indeed the rimes here are pretty standard on inspection.


I started Early--Took my Dog--
And visited the Sea--
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me--

And Frigates--in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands--
Presuming Me to be a Mouse
Aground--upon the Sands--

But no Man moved Me--Till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe--
And past my Apron--and my Belt
And past my Bodice--too--

And made as He would eat me up--
As wholly as a Dew
Upon a Dandelion's Sleeve--
And then--I started--too--

And He--He followed--close behind--
I felt His Silver Heel
Upon my Ankle--Then my Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl--

Until We met the Solid Town--
No One He seemed to know--
And bowing--with a Mightly look--
At me--The Sea withdrew--

[Michael Juster]

Alicia: You are undoubtedly right again about Dickinson's stature here. It's funny--I feel myself very American in terms of attitude, interests and themes, but from a prosody point of view I feel very disconnected from the main "American" literary tradition. Although I had a brief infatuation with Whitman in my teens, I quickly viewed him as a rambling gasbag with rare interludes of gorgeous lucidity. Dickinson has always left me cold, and Stevens still baffles me despite the wonderful texture of some of the language. Even Frost I have to admit I admire more than love. I resonate much more with Swift, Pope, Byron, Auden, and Larkin.
Now that I have finished my self-indulgent editorial, I did want to make one serious point. I have read Annie Finch's stuff on Dickinson, and seen it quoted respectfully by leading New Formalists. It has some valuable points. However, I think she has undergone an extended hallucinatory experience when discussing Dickinson's meter. The short version of Finch's thesis is that Dickinson rejected iambic meters as part of the patriarchal oppression of the time and reacted by writing in more "feminine" dactylic meters. A fair self-description for Finch as a poet, perhaps, but not at all fair for Dickinson. I hear Dickinson as a poet who writes in predominantly iambic meters softened by moderate use of anapests, and see very few even arguably "dactylic" poems. This poem strikes me as fairly typical of Dickinson from a prosodic point of view, and I think bolsters my point. Am I misguided yet again?

[A. E. Stallings]

Michael, I think I'm similar to you in that. I feel very American in every other respect, but do not feel I really descend poetically via an American geneology. I wonder why that is? American poets are usually supposed to descend from Emily or Walt--and I don't feel very close to either. I feel closer to the English tradition--most recently the Georgians and Larkin. Hmmm. The American with most influence on me would probably be Ransom.

I know Annie's general views about meter and patriarchy, and find them fascinating, but I remain sceptical (though I have noticed that the topics of my own anapestic/dactyllic poems would tend to fit her thesis...). I haven't read her stuff on Dickinson. Maybe she'll stop by? Personally, I don't find the iamb or pentameter patriarchal or oppressive in any way.

Indeed, in Dickinson's case, hymn meter--the meter of the church and her father's faith--might arguably by pretty durn patriarchal, don't you think? But she inverts/perverts/subverts this to her own purposes. Of course this, as you point out, is strongly iambic.

[Tim Murphy]

Well, I'm a Dickinson fanatic, and I think the number of first rate poems is one order of magnitude greater than two dozen. It's not just the slant rhymes, it's the imagery that is equally startling and fresh. She takes off the top of my head and breaks my heart. Here's one I often use at funerals:

The bustle in the house
The morning after Death
Is solomnest of Industries
Enacted upon Earth.

The sweeping up the Heart
And putting Love away
We shall not want to use again
Until Eternity.

Annie the F. doesn't understand Emily's meter or anyone's meter, including her own. I really think her crackpot ideas were invented as a means to excuse her long, losing battle to master IP.

[nyctom]

You know, I studied so much 20th century poetry written by women in college and feminist theory one of my professors (for Chaucer, actually) asked me in a huff, "What is it you find so attractive about all this dyke poetry?" I often wondered if he would include ED in that implied list. I didn't say anything about The Pardoner's Tale, which I still think is as queer as they come.

Sorry but when I hear comments like this hooey about ED's battle against patriarchy, I just have to laugh. Do you honestly believe that ED sat in her little Amherst room at night and said, "Now, iambic pentameter is so patriarchal...I had better subvert the power of patriarchy by writing in slant rhyme and hymn meters. That'll show 'em"? Some of these critics...I just wish they would take their epistemology and go back into the closet.

I love ED's weird, off eye and ear. As I said, I often have no idea what she is writing about, but I am endlessly intrigued. And I think her letters to Higginson are as fascinating on poetry as Keats' are to his brother. Anyone know of a place where they are all gathered together?

By the way Mr. Juster, hello. I think you have great taste in music. Richard Thompson AND Emmylou Harris? I thought I was the only one who fiercely loved them BOTH. Any idea where I can find a copy of Emmy's "Thirteen"? It's the only one I am missing besides "Gliding Bird." Did you ever hear Emmy's cover of "Dimming of the Day?" Ah, sometimes I am very happy to be alive.

[A. E. Stallings]

Tim,

Thanks for posting that one. It certainly does break the heart. And I agree that she has lodged more than a couple of dozen poems where they are difficult to get rid of, to paraphrase Frost.

It is fascinating to me how many of her poems detonate outward at the end rather than clicking shut like a box. It is a combination both, as you say, of fresh and startling imagery, and also the slant rime, very often ending on open vowels. (Of course, she does follow the conventions, such as they are, for slant rime--which includes the ability to rime any ending vowel with any other--vowels being the algebraic "x" in the equation. Not unlike, I think, Old English prosody, where any initial vowel may alliterate with any other.)

Nyctom, thanks for commenting. (For those who might be interested in Annie Finch's controversial views, I think she has some essays up at her web site. If people would like to discuss the views, though, I think the forum for that would be "The Discerning Eye": Annie Finch Home Page )

[Michael Juster]

For the record, I am more than willing to consider the view that the themes and imagery of Dickinson's poems are subversive of various orthodoxies, particularly religious ones, but perhaps gender-based cultural ones as well. My point is limited to the observation that tying that subversive tendency to metrical preferences she doesn't in fact have is loony tunes.
Tom, can't help you on the album, but if you like those two you may well like Gillian Welch as well--her newest (Time The Revelator) is just out, and it's exquisite.
Alicia: A very interesting point on the rhymes. I'm gonna chew over that one...

[ewrgall]

Dickinson is America most original and best poet. Whitman takes a distant second place. (I have problems with Whitman. When much younger I made the proverbial mistake of trying to read "Leaves Of Grass" in one sitting. I gave up as all do. It was like watching a beautiful thing kill itself. Finally I could stomach no more. I have this fantasy about going back in time and confronting Whitman. I grab the front of his shirt, slap him across the face several times then shout, "In separate small books! Keep it in separate small books!").

Dickinson was a little quirky. A number of her poems are about dead people--little obits. Her take on them.

Dickinson, too me, always seems to be writing about something specific--but exactly what very often puzzles me. (She is NOT a Wallace Stevens who usually didn't know what he was writing about---Helen Vendler's book on Wallace Stevens makes as much sense as Wallace Steven's poetry--a perfect mating.) I always feel that there is a key to Emily's door and I am sure that door merely opens on the local world around her. She did not have to look far to see Everything.

ewrgall

[nyctom]

I want to clarify what I said by saying: What Mike said. It's just this proposition with the meters I object to. It's like Virginia Woolf's assertion that some sentences are female and some male. Too bad she isn't around to have her test her theory out with blind samples. And I love VW.

I have been trying to access the essay on ED from Finch's site, but the link is broken. Do you know the url and I can try accessing it more directly?

Yes Mike, huge Gillian Welch fan. And Richard Shindell. Though right now I keep playing one song with the feel of a WWI ballad by the Magnetic Fields called "Abagail Belle of Kilronan."

I know she generally avoided it, but did ED write anything about the Civil War in the poems?

[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited September 20, 2001).]

[nyctom]

Sorry, it double posted.

[This message has been edited by nyctom (edited September 20, 2001).]