Bring me the sunset in a cup (pt1)

Bring me the sunset in a cup--
Reckon the morning's flagon's up
And say how many Dew--
Tell me how far the morning leaps--
Tell me what time the weaver sleeps
Who spun the breadths of blue!

Write me how many notes there be
In the new Robin's extasy
Among astonished boughs--
How many trips the Tortoise makes--
How many cups the Bee partakes--
The Debauchee of Dews!
(first two stanzas #140)

This poem is dated by Franklin at 1830, meaning the poet wrote it when she was 29-30 years old. Anyone familiar with classic poetry might mistake it, at first read, for a poem by John Donne. The persona in this poem is demanding, exact and bold. It is a deviation from the circuitous poetry typical of Dickinson, but the strong nature images begin to give her away, along with the common charged Dickinson language: extasy & Debauchee.

This is not the shy doormouse that so many make of Dickinson, nor is it a ghost in white flitting about nature. The speaker in this poem gives a glimpse of a poet who was insatiably curious, always wondering "Why" and "How" at a point in her life when most adults were content with "because." The endless questions, of which above poem is only half, show the child's mind that thirsts and thirsts, craving more than can ever be known. Perhaps there is an imperious tone in the beginning, demanding the sunset in a cup and making use of the conceit. And yet this was Dickinson, who could find a sunset in a cup. Perhaps she is not asking the reader to bring a sunset to her, but challenging her reader to find the sunset in the cup for himself (or herself).

What I can do-- I will ... pt2

Continuing an analysis of the poem in the last entry...

The third and fourth lines that compose this very small poem explore the ability of imagination to go beyond limitations or restrictions. Interestingly enough, "that I cannot" is not unknown to the speaker. There is a realism in this statement, in that the speaker understands that he or she may encounter things which may be insurmountable. At the same time, the speaker refuses to let possiblity know that limitations exist. In this poem is an example of self-suggestion, or being conscious of the thoughts and expressions the persona voices.

The speaker is committed to giving everything he or she has, to going as far as humanly possible. He or she will not allow negative comments or thoughts to be voiced or expressed, and in making this decision many obstacles have already been overcome. The speaker builds faith within the self, speaking possiblity and nuturing it in thought before anything can happen in deed. This poem speaks to the abilities that the human mind has to conquer, proving that much that might seem impossible can be accomplished once the decisions is made that it can happen. Failure is "Unknown to possiblity", and the speaker puts himself or herself at a marked advantage before even starting to explore what great or what little is possible.

The Luxury to apprehend

When people think about the poetry of Emily Dickinson, they so often think of her as the nature poet or as the flat-out confusing poet. She is not readily associated with love poetry, and certainly her poems are nothing like a Shakespearean or Donne sonnet, nor do they bear much obvious resemblance to something like Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poems. And yet some of Dickinson's poems are powerful and evocative love poems, though often in an almost obsessive way, fully consumed by the beloved or longing to be consumed by the beloved. Her language is highly charged, highly passionate.

Dickinson scholar Brenda Wineapple writes about Dickinson's relationships, and she makes mention of this intensity that the poet possessed. Relationships were intense and Dickinson took them seriously, from her true friendships through what some speculate might be love relationships, though there is great ambiguity concerning any lovers Dickinson may have had. Her poems are, to borrow phrases from the poem below, of the "epicure" and are fully laden with "sumptuousness supplies". Excess and lavishness are the course, parting from courtly admiration in favor of pure extravagance-- extravagance sharply contrasted with the precise and yet concise lanuage of Dickinson:

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury 'twould be
To look at thee a single time
An Epicure of me
In whatsoever presences makes
Till for a further food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied.

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on they Countenance
A sumptuousness supplies
To plainer Days whose Table, far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb--
The Consciousness of thee--
(F 819)

Did We abolish Frost

Did We abolish Frost
The Summer would not cease--
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us--
(F 1024)

Yet another of Dickinson's briefest of poems, and one that doesn't really rhyme. This particular poem can be interpreted as the desire to control nature, and by proxy the passage or progression of time. If people were to do away with the cold frost, the summer could linger on. There is a desire for control, to dominate that which people cannot rule-- seasons and time. Dickinson draws on this universal desire, the desire to control what is beyond controlling, to create a point at which her audience can connect with the poem. People do not care about the seasons, they don't care for change. They certainly don't care for the things which the frost represents, namely the archetype of death. The frost may also represent an entombment, isolation and a prison keeping one from contact with the outside world.

Ironically, the endurance or end of a season is not optional for anyone. The poem unveils the fallacy of thinking that control is possible. In the first two lines Dickinson uses the familiar desire to resist change as the familiar point for her reader. In the last lines, however, a careful reading reveals the unexpected reversal-- people have no option but to accept the seasons. The speaker does not overtly state this, but rather uses a fallacy to set up the reader into suddenly remembering that the seaons will never be controlled by humans, and therefore humans are forever subject to its fullness, both in life and light of summer and the dark, death, and isolation of winter.

We never know we go when we are going--

We never know we go when we are going--
We jest and shut the Door--
Fate-- following-- behind us bolts it--
And we accost no more--
(F 1546)

This is one of the poems that I like to view as a "pseudo-gibberish" poem, because at first glance or hasty reading the words seem to talk around each other. Her clever twists of language and logic demand a careful reading, and through several careful readings, the meaning of the poem emerges. It reads much like a form of parable called similitude. Similitude is a short parable consisting of about one line. In the Bible a similitude might read something like "the kingdom of heaven is like a bit of yeast that a woman works into the dough until it is hidden". They are the most concise of parables, and this poem consists of barely two sentences, a meager four lines. In this poem Dickinson compacts language as tightly as possible to create that single moment of intense experience.

Anyone who has had a surprise, particularly a bad surprise, knows that we often live our lives unaware of what is coming in a few days, hours, or minutes. This summer a local principal was walking through a parking lot to grocery shop, only to collapse from a heart attack (thankfully he survived). Loved ones can die suddenly or even instantly, and a single word can undo a person in a second. In a slight deviation, another intepretation, one never knows when a single comment or action can "close the door" to other opportunities. It is so easy to offend or insult, and often some of the gravest injuries given are those that occurred without the insult-er being aware he or she hurt someone. Still, a door can be shut and bolted all the same, preventing any further relationship or experience.

This parable illustrates the universal experience that is common in parable-- there is a familiar experience that the poet draws upon as a point of contact to the audience. In this care there are two points of contact-- 1. going out or going upon one's normal day or routine and 2. fate shutting the door to end an experience or potential experience. The first is the familiar or a stereoptyped action, namely walking out the door. It can mean a literal walk or figuratively represent embarking upon a new decision or direction, venturing into the unknown. This experience is tweaked by the poet, however, and what should have been adventure and good things has twisted into not a beginning but an end. The archetype of the new dissolves into ruin.

Pain-- has an Element of Blank--

Pain-- has an Element of Blank--
It cannot recollect
When it begun-- Or if there were
A time when it was not--

It has no Future-- but itself--
It's Infinite contain
It's Past-- enlightened to perceive
New Periods-- Of Pain.
(F 760)

This poem perfectly captures the essence of pain, particularly chronic pain. Whether physical, emotional, or psychological, pain can take on that "element of blank", wherein the person enduring the pain feels lost in the sensation and may feel, for brief or longer periods, as though the pain always has previously existed and could continue to exist indefinitely. Sometimes pain can become so all-encompassing that it is consuming, seeming to stretch itself into all time.

Dickinson's poem parallels this perception of pain, as her poem focuses on the subject of pain but does so in a blank manner. There are no specifics as to what kind of pain this speaker experiences, no context given for the occasion of pain. Although only eight lines, this poem ironically creates a feeling of eternity in its compact language. Despite the lack of memory, as it cannot recall a beginning or end, it is full of the intensity of the feeling in the moment, sharply and achingly aware of the depth and breadth of hurt.

For the readers who may think the pain can be overcome with "mind over matter" or some sort of enlightenment or hope, this hope is squashed in the second stanza. The only enlightenment or perception offered to the reader comes in the final line-- the revelation of "new periods-- of pain". Just as the poem claims pain seemingly has to beginning or end, the poem begins and ends with the word "pain." It is all encompassing in structure, circuitous and another symbol of a self-perpetuating eternity, demonstrating again Dickinson's ability to use language and structure compressed into one another to heighten the emotion to a single moment or experience of intensity.

Over the fence

Over the fence--
Strawberries-- grow--
Over the fence--
I could climb-- if I tried, I know--
Berries are nice!

But-- if I stained my Apron--
God would certainly scold!
Oh, dear,-- I guess if He were a Boy--
He'd-- climb-- if He could!
(F 271)

This is one of those poems that I chanced upon, finding it only when I opened my anthology and looked at the first poem I saw. It seems to me that I find some of my favorite Dickinson poems this way, and today was not an exception.

I love when Dickinson writes about the limitations that we put on ourselves-- the impositions of society and our own guilt and self-made obligations to conformity. The possiblity of a stain upon the apron can be symbolic of the potential stain upon one's reputation. As one critic wrote, much of Dickinson's poetry hinges on the balance between the actual and the hoped for.

There are gender issues here, and it is open for feminist criticism. I suppose Freudian interpretation would make it that way, emphasizing the erotic in the berry and desire to act upon the suppressed desire. And feminist criticism could take issue with the Eve complex. The boy can hop the fence of propriety, sow his wild oats, and hop back into the good graces of all. Again the societal limitations become the theme of this poem, trapping the speaker in her corseted traditional role-- stifled and suppressed.

Much Madness is divinest Sense

Much Madness is divinest sense--
To a discerning Eye--
Much Sense-- the starkest madness--
'Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail--
Assent-- and you are sane--
Demur-- you're straightaway dangerous--
And handled with a Chain--
(F 620)

I have so many favorite Dickinson poems that it's hard to choose just one (although if pressed, I'd have to choose I dwell in possibility), but this poem is definitely on the favorite list. In "Much Madness", Dickinson plays with the tension between sanity and insanity. It's a very fine line, and this poem reads almost like a decent-- or maybe it's an ascent-- into madness. The first and third lines utilize chiasmus to heighten the arbitrary shifts between the poles.

Reading this poem is confusing at times, and the reader may feel lost in the switches between sanity and madness. This was intentional, I believe, on Dickinson's part to further illustrate that what we perceive as crazy and what we deem normal may, in fact, be just the opposite. It's highly parable, full of reversals of meaning and language, and yet so very compact in its language. This poem is an illustration of Dickinson at her sharpest.

There's a certain Slant of light

One of Dickinson's great gifts in writing poetry is her ability to find language to recreate an experience for the reader. Through word choice and metaphor she creates not merely a description of emotion and the human condition, but she forces the reader to remember-- very literally the reader re-members. Breaking down remember to its elements: "re", as in doing again like repeating or retrail; combined with "member" or actively involving in something. Thus, the audience is transported from reader to actor as Dickinson uses words to cause the audience to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel the very core of emotions-- often at their most raw:

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference--
Where the Meanings, are--

None may teach it-- Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent of us the Air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows-- hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death
(F 320)

Through this poem, Dickinson creates the experience of depression (and argueably of Seasonal Affective Disorder). She uses strong verbs like "oppresses" and nouns like 'heft", "hurt", "scar" "Despair" and "affliction" to create a stark picture of the soul-wearying, exhausting trial of depression. In this case, the depression renders the speaker incapacitated, which Dickinson describes through synesthesia in the first stanza: "There's a certain slant of light, / ... That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes" (1, 3-4). This is yet another example of Dickinson's skill in bending language as mere light, ironically which one would expect to be physically light or not wearying, oppresses like the weight of a pipe organ, or the "Cathedral Tunes". Dickinson blends nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs through metaphor into a super-charged metaphor of crushing power, and all this in just the first stanza.

I'll probably take up this poem again later, too. I know I'm saying that a lot, but I will get back to it.

The trouble with Emily Dickinson

So many people look at Emily Dickinson's poetry as challenging and downright confusing. They feel she is a difficult poet, and as one scholar put it, they transfer their own feelings of frustration and confusion with her writing to the poet, believing that Dickinson was confused or frustrated. It's not easy to understand a poet who makes so much use of enigma and who requires a lot out of her reader, requiring the reader to spend time with the poetry.

Dickinson's poems are not iambic pentameter, they are not trite, sometimes subjects and verbs are nebulous, her lines are typically enjambed, and few people really know what to make of the artillery of dashes. Her images are startling and confrontational. They synthesize multiple senses at once, and often the aural or auditory richness of her poetry is completely overlooked because no one really knows exactly how she meant her poems to be read.

Furthermore, much of her poetry cannot be understood until it is experienced. Without spending time in the world of society and its rules-- written and unwritten-- one cannot appreciate the truth of a poem such as "I like a look of Agony," which praises agony as the only emotion that cannot be contrived. Her poem "Pain has an element of blank" cannot be fully understood or appreciated until one has experienced deep pain that has that "blankness" where one forgets, if even for a few moments, that such a time existed when pain was not part of one's life.

What's worse, we're never really sure where we stand with Emily Dickinson. She likes to confuse and invert things, leaving us doubting what is truth and what is made up. A poem like "Tell all the truth but tell it slant" looks at the experience of trying to sort out truth with its seeming ambiguity. Dickinson tests the boundaries of truth, challenging the reader's paradigm and questioning the solidity of the line between black and white. Her speakers are slippery and her intents throw us right and left.

That said, it's never a dull ride with Dickinson. Yes, I still find a great deal of her poetry utterly confusing. There are poems that I read and try to reflect upon, only to feel more and more confused and impatient. At times I want to throw down the collection of poetry and wish I could give her a piece of my mind for making it so hard. But I come back. Because it's challenge, because if it was easy and familiar, I would not find it so fascinating. And I love those moments when I come across a poem that so succinctly voices exactly the situation and/or emotions that I have been wrestling with. And I love those moments when a poem I previously skipped suddenly makes perfect sense. She is unexpected, her work is hard, but I like a puzzle and I like a troublemaker.

The largest Fire ever known

The largest Fire ever known
Occurs each Afternoon--
Discovered is without surprise
Proceeds without concern--
Consumes and no report to men
An Occidental Town,
Rebuilt another morning
To be burned down again
(F 974)

Dickinson's sunset is a fire, wild and yet steady. Opposites war within this poem, as is typical in her writing. The town is burned completely, and yet it will rise again like the phoenix. Or perhaps the fire will rise again like the phoenix. There is a free license this fire has to burn, and yet it burns within its parameters, so predictable that it is of little concern to men.

She has the gift of the poet to make the reader look at the next sunset and marvel at its intensity and its audacity to ignite the sky so. Her language arrests the reader's attention, mixing clinical words like "discovers", "occurs" and "report" with the highly charged words like "largest fire" and "burned down". Language in the poem follows the progression, using inciting words when describing the fiery sunset, then cooling to a clinical description of the lack of awareness in the middle of this poem, only to flare again in the final lines. Her word choice guides the emotion of the poem, plotting its progression.

Elysium is as far as to

Just when I think so much of Dickinson is cynical and dark and depressing, I stumble across something like this:

Elysium is as far to
The very nearest Room
If in that Room a Friend await
Felicity or Doom--

What fortitude the Soul contains,
That it can so endure
The accent of a coming Foot--
The opening of a Door--
(F 1590)

There is a tone of torturous expectation in this poem. Restraint is stretched to its very limit, enduring the "accent of a coming Foot" and the build of expectation both in the speaker and the reader. It's a bit mean to leave the reader dangling in anticipation, but it's very Dickinson. The entire premise rests on the simple word "if," and yet that word is highly charged with meaning. The condition-- "If in that Room a Friend await"-- remains unresolved.

The unknown amplifies the anticipation, for perhaps the friend is coming and joy will follow. But then perhaps it is not a friend and all the expectation is for naught. Or worse yet, what if the friend turns out to be no longer a friend and what started in joy or should have been joy will quickly dissolve from "felicity" to "doom." As usual, Dickinson stretches the poem between poles of existence-- in this case felicity and doom-- and leaves the reader hanging. The conclusion that the reader arrives at is something like the old question "Is the glass half-full or half-empty?" and the reader's conclusion to this will reveal more about the reader than it ever does about Dickinson or the speaker in the poem. This is a perfect example of the parable element of open endings. No clear cut resolution exists, and the predicament demands a resolution that the reader must find for himself.

A Letter is a joy of Earth

A Letter is a joy of Earth--
It is denied the Gods--
(F 1672)

This tiny poem might very well have come out of a letter, and is typical of the statements Dickinson often made-- gnomic thoughts compressed tightly into a single sentence. I love when she comes up with these seemingly simplistic statements. Anyone might thing "A letter is a joy of earth," because most people really do enjoy getting mail. I think at times that Dickinson would like instant messaging, because not only does it retain some anonymity but it also thrives on the sharp, witty intellect that she possessed. And yet instant messaging has both destroyed and enhanced the art of letter writing. I say destroyed because so few students really know how to draft a formal letter, and few see the value in such a slow form of communication in our technologically advanced society. And yet techology has enhanced letters in the sense that a note in paper means even more and receiving one shows great consideration.

Going more directly back to the poem, though, few people except Dickinson would add on the afterthought: "it is denied the gods." I'm still researching to make sure my grasp of grammar is correct, but if this is a compound sentence (and really even if it's not and it could go either way with Dickinson), then the second line could arguably serve as a nominative clause, renaming "joy" in the first line.

Ironically, the gods who ought to have access to everything are denied one thing-- the joy of letters. It's the unexpected reversal found so often in Dickinson, where the reader would assume gods have access to all, only to realize that while a god might receive a letter, it is unlike that it would happen. And if the god was omniscient, as Christian tradition maintains God is, then the letter really isn't much of a joy. As humans we have expectation or anticipation while we wait for a letter to arrive. There is the sudden surprise-joy of an unexpected letter, but still the anticipation is there when we see the envelope and wonder even for a few seconds before opening what could be inside. The omniscient god would already have foreknowledge, thus making the letter mundane or expected.

Arguably, the Christian response to this could be that even if God is already aware of letters or communication, the very act of communication is a joy to him. It makes me wonder how Dickinson might have responded to this defense.

He ate and drank the precious Words

He ate and drank the precious Words--
His Spirit grew robust--
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was Dust--
He danced along the dingy Days
And this Bequest of Wings
Was but a Book-- What Liberty
A loosened Spirit brings--
(F 1593)

Words and language held great power for Dickinson, and she spent much time in her childhood surrounded by books-- prose and poetry alike, as well as other literary publications like magazines and newspapers. It's obvious in this poem-- and in many others like "There is no frigate like a book" (F 1286)-- that Dickinson greatly valued literature and had a deep appreciation for books.

Yet what she does in this poem is create a sort of heresy, in which literature or the act of reading brings liberation and joy to the reader. Rather than a sermon or conversion experience, it is the book that shows him he is more than the mere dust of the earth in Genesis. The speaker in this poem becomes the preacher, testifying of the soul is that finds redemption and heaven in a mere book. It would have been horribly blasphemous, and yet Dickinson deliberately wrote the poem that way.

This poem bolsters the idea that words and language were salvation to Dickinson, that she found faith within them. She struggled to embrace the faith of her family and neighbors and wrote to her dear childhood friend, Abiah Root, "I was almost I was persuaded to be a Christian" (Wineapple 50), giving allusion to King Agrippa's words to Paul "Almost thou has persuaded me" (Acts 26:28). And yet she felt no absolute security in the faith surrounding her, unable to reconcile pain and the unknown with the hard realities of loss around her. Much of her writing was, after all, her way of singing like the boy in the graveyard. It was an exploration of the unknown, and yet it was simultaneously a distraction from what might be lurking in the shadows. Language was both her faith and her fear, and controlling it so carefully perhaps gave her the illusion of control that she craved.

I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground

Dickinson's poetry is highly notable for its compact or compressed language. Her word choice is exacting, never wasting a syllable in meaning or sound. Wineapple relates a comment Higginson once made regarding good writing: "'There may be years of crowded passion in a word, and half a life in a sentence,' he explained. 'A single word may be a window form which one may perceive all the kingdoms of the earth ... Charge your style with life'" (White Heat, 6). No doubt he immediately recognized this gift in Dickinson's poetry. She did not pick the good words for her poems, but she picked the best word in all cases, which makes it yet more of a miracle that she managed to write at least 1789 poems during her lifetime. They are sharp, exacting, and often demanding writings.

I think it's particularly interesting that Wineapple includes a quote from Dickinson that may explain the motive the poet had in writing. Dickinson writes "I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground-- because I am afraid" (8). Fear is a great paralyzer, but it can also be a great motivator. We do a lot of things, make a lot of choices, because of fear. But only truly successful and great people are able to recognize this fear and address it, much less channel it into something useful.

Perhaps when it was all said and done, part of Dickinson's reluctance to push publication of her poetry was because her poetry was so self-revealing. In the pages of the anthologies of her writing, we find insecurity, doubt, stark fear, questions, and a great longing for what is unknown (and what she possibly believed was unknowable). There is simultaneously peace and riot, joy and pain, surrender and fight. Hardly can she be called a shy door mouse or a total hermit. For all of her isolation, through her writing she fully embraced life and all of the experiences that make up our existence. Dickinson walked into the unknown dark, sometimes with eyes wide and alert and sometimes shut closed in searing trust of what she did not know.