Tonight I ran out of work to get to the first of three “conversations” about “Seeing New Englandly — a Conversation with Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost”.
I was the first to arrive and was greeted by the teacher. I decided to go out and get my copy of Dickinson poems (got a ‘good for you’ upon determining they were the newer collection by Franklin, and I got to look through The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson – most fascinating to see the handwriting!). Soon the room was full of folks and papers were being passed around and the introduction of Emily began.
Actually, it began with a reading from Henry Adams about the sensual nature of his childhood near Quincy Mass. Some letters to Abiah Root and Jane Humphrey. There was some discussion about the dual nature of the New England year, the changing of seasons, the classic autumn days, the serious winters.
Then we talked about the spheres of her world, her withdrawal from society (not really), speculations about her, her existence surrounded by people who were professing their religious faith.
Then the poems (here by their first lines), a smattering of the many:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
This is my letter to the World
I’ll tell you how the Sun rose —
Because I could not stop for Death —
A Light exists in Spring
A Bird came down the Walk —
There’s a certain Slant of light,
I prayed, at first, a little Girl,
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind —
They shut me up in Prose —
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —
Renunciation — is a piercing Virtue —
I Years had been from Home
The Soul has Bandaged moments —
She asked questions as though they had never been asked before, our leader said. Her friends withdrew from her as she did from them, yet she corresponded with many. She lived apart, wrote and put her poems in a drawer.
I was left with an exploding brain from the pure economy of her words. The biggest explosion though was the notion of living apart, even surrounded by a world of religion and domesticity and war, to the point where you can think your own thoughts and see everything new. Whether her personal space was by choice or not or both, it’s certain that Dickinson and her poems were bound up in it.
More thoughts on this to come and as I re-read the poems and some of the other materials I came home with.
We finally dispersed for the night about 15 minutes over time but I think we could have gone on a couple more hours. I’m really looking forward to next week!
