In 1862, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a scholar, received four poems enclosed in a letter from a young woman in Amherst, Massachusetts, US. The poems were sent to Higginson for a professional literary opinion since his reputation had established him as a man of letter and an essayist. The judgement came from the receiver as creations of a certain degree of unorthodox writing.
He too felt that the poems he read belong to a new era. But his ultimate conclusion happened to be a rejection. Despite the conclusion, Higginson continued to correspond with the young poetess. She was no other than Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). As later records show, the poetess had been enjoyed in the creative process devoid of any discouragement. This has reached a point where she had written some thousands of poems.
Poetic skills
As a later compiler of the poems of Emily Dickinson, George Gesner points out: after the death of Emily, in 1886, her sister Lavinia had discovered a box containing hundreds of her poems. In her search for a publisher, she had come in contact with a poetry enthusiast named Mabel Loomis Todd, a wife of a professor. In contact with Higginson, Mabel brought out the complete poems of Emily Dickinson in order to encourage Lavinia and to rediscover Emily and her latent poetic skills. As such, most of the poems we read today, which are closed in the compilation of Todd and Higginson titled as Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson came out several times commencing from 1890 until 1982. The work I possess is an edition brought out by Gramerey Books in NY.
This complete work includes four books each containing more than 100 poems. The first book is titled as Life. The second one is Love. The third is Nature. The fourth is Time and Eternity. Whether the partition of her poems is done by her or by the later editors is not quite certain. But all the books taken as a whole depict the world of the poetess in varied forms.
In Book One, Emily attempts to present the simple and sensitive challenges she had faced through her living conditions. On the topic titled as ‘Success’ she writes:
“Success is counted sweetest,
By those who never succeed
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need!”
“As he, defeated dying,
On whose forbidden ear,
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonised and clear.”
Mysterious pain
As a poetess, Emily traverses from the simple situations to visionary stages, penetrating into sensitive experiences such as The Mystery of Pain where she states:
“Pain has an element of blank,
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A Day when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened
New periods of pain to perceive.”
It is believed that most of the poems of Dickinson have been sent to friends as gifts and sometimes as letters of goodwill. From a conventional point of view, most of the poems are rhythmic prose, written as thoughtful streams with flashes of sensitive insights.
One good example s the introspective thought stream that goes as follows, untitled.
“If I can stop one heart
From breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one life
The aching
Or cool one pain
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again
I shall not live in vain.”
The book Love contains some of the alternative types of love poems in the form of a metaphysical definition, the poetess writes:
Love is anterior to life
Posterior to death
Initial of creation and
The exponent of breath.
In an undertone, at times the poetess sees the concept of love as ironic. One good example is the one untitled and goes as follows:
We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.
Why poetry
The poetic persona is created in the form of a detached person who observes experiences as a series of images. In the third book titled as ‘Nature’ the poetess seems to penetrate into the inner selves of all that is around her. They include the trees, birds, butterflies, seasons, sea mornings and evenings and tender questions related to them. The poem titled 'Why', looks like a preface to her creations that go as follows.
The murmur of a bee
A witchcraft yieldeth me
If anyone asks me why
’t were easier to die.
The red upon the hill
Taketh away my will
If anybody sneer,
Take care, for god is here
That’s all.
The breaking of the day
Addeth to my degree
If any ask me how,
Artist who drew me so must tell.
A layer of spirituality is fused into the narrative type of expression reminding of influences from psalms. The poems in book four titled as ‘Time and Eternity’ encompasses more natural poems of Emily Dickinson. They include more of prophetic views on the passing of time and the thoughts pertaining to a possible lifespan than one expects. In the prologue-like beginning, the poetess says:
This world is not the conclusion
A sequel stained beyond
Invisible as music
But positive as so sound
It beckons and it baffles
Philosophies don’t know
And through riddles
At the last.
Sagacity must go
To guess it puzzles scholars
To gain it men have shown
Contempt of generations
And crucifixion known.
The poetess seems to have gained inspiration in her visits to places of sanctity like seeing graves, bombs, imagining profiles of holiness and reading epitaphs. As her well-wishing preface writer Mabel Loomis Todd says: ‘Storm, wind, the wild March sky, sunsets and dawns the birds and bees, butterflies and flowers of her garden with a few trusted human friends, were sufficient companionship for her inspiration.’
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