Comments for Emily Dickinson #67

Emily Dickinson #67

2009-07-04T00:50:50Z

{Dwayne Betts}

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of Victory

As he defeated - dying -

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

Comment from Vance Maverick on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T04:06:05Z

I like how she applies "forbidden" to the dying soldier's ear (because the triumph he hears through it is forbidden to him), and "agonized" to the strains of triumph (whether because he hears them through agony, or because they cost an agony to those who are actaully earning them).

Do you know the date on this? In particular, had the Civil War actually begun? This doesn't seem to depend on more than an abstract understanding of war (not a knock, of course).

Comment from J.W. Hamner on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T08:04:46Z

There is no poet I despise more than Emily Dickinson. She is the Anti-Poet. A giant hack mixed with a heavy does of anachronism. I can't believe anyone could read that nonsense and not want to stab themselves. Repeatedly. What is the draw? I don't get it.

Comment from CitizenE on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T14:29:28Z

4th of July Med-
Itation

Freestyle Vino

COMPOSITION!

my 2 cents of being

IN RELATION

WITH A UNIVERSE

OF COLOR

BURST OF BLOSSOM MAN-MADE THINGS AS WELL POW!

EASY PEASY
PARA VIVIR

Adoration
Convocation
Variation
Striation
JAZZ

No. 1
It’s LEMONADE

(the whole thing should be centered but hard to get the effects here, Happy 4th)

Comment from Dwayne Betts on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T14:56:52Z

I'll post another poem today. Then my last post - and I hope you enjoy them both. As for Dickinson as a poet - I think she's fly. And I think she has the memorable lines that say something that need to be said - think about this Much madness is divinest sense/ to the discerning eye. That's a dope couplet - but more than that the poem it comes from is just on point, telling in a short space what of the risks of being willing to stand out.

But on Dickinson as a poet - I'm not here to be her defender. I will say that you can read one of a thousand books written on her and then quip with those writers. They'd probably even engage you in the argument. I think you'd lose. But it all depends on what you go to poetry for.

Comment from Bruins2Lakers on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T18:14:49Z

jW
I used to feel similarly and it annoyed me when I asked my American lit students to flip through the 8 lb. textbook and choose a poem that their group could analyze for the class and they always chose her poems because they were short, ignoring far richer stuff--Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Julia Alvarez, et al. Then, amazingly, they had trouble with these short little gems like "Hope is a Thing with Feathers" or "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." So together we'd deconstruct each line, each word usage--and a funny thing happened: There was a whole lotta something behind what appeared to be a whole mess of nothing.
Her poems are like those homes that from the front facade look small, but the lot behind it runs deep. Remember this woman shunned fame, feared critics, and kept it all in a shoebox for years until it was discovered posthumously.
She's not my favorite, but when you take it apart and reassemble she's got the messages on point in few words. Kind of like Hemingway, who I never got either, but I liked his succinctness even if I'd rather read the wordy Faulkner.
You know who you NEED to have here is Wanda Coleman. Ever read Aptitude test? I've seen people just about fall out of their chairs. Same with Charles Bukowski, although he also has penned some very tame poems, as well. Like this one:
____________________________________________________________________

The meek have inherited

if I suffer at this
typewriter
think hoe I'd feel
among the lettuce-
pickers of Salinas?

I think of the men
I've known in
factories
with no way to
get out--
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while
2 or 3 children beat
tennis balls against
the walls.

some suicides are never
recorded.

Comment from Bruins2Lakers on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T18:15:36Z

how not hoe (LOL)

Comment from like totally down on 2009-07-04

2009-07-04T19:36:39Z

Richard Wilbur mentions this poem in his excellent article about Dickinson, "Sumptuous Destitution".

Here's some sumptuous destitution from Wilbur, the final stanza of Hamlen Brook:

Joy’s trick is to supply
Dry lips with what can cool and slake,
Leaving them dumbstruck also with an ache
Nothing can satisfy.