The Dickinson Project--Poem No. 657

I dwell in Possibility--
A fairer House than Prose--
More numerous of Windows--
Superior--for Doors--

Of Chambers as the Cedars--
Impregnable of eye--
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky--

Of Visitors--the fairest--
For Occupation--This--
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise--

This is an interesting little poem that has always appealed to me.  The first couplet gives away the subject of the poem--Poetry--which, in Dickinson's opinion, is a fairer House than Prose.  Personally, I agree with her.  I think most people would think that a writer has more latitude and flexibility in plotting and being descriptive with prose, so Dickinson plays on that perception with her description of her 'House' with all of its windows and doors.  In other words, Dickinson, through her poetry, chooses to let us in in through the poem's 'windows' into her soul; or, she can effectively block us with a 'door' of her own construction (or, even by living as a recluse?).  Conversely, a 'door' is also an entrance, isn't it?  It is another way that Emily lets us into her 'House'.  Although it may take some work, our access depends upon our interpretation of Emily's poem, line-by-line, and word-by-word.  It is, after all, her 'House'.

In the second stanza she describes the overall architecture of her 'House'.  It isn't made of brick or clapboard.  No, Emily uses Cedar, a very long-lasting aromatic smelling wood.  The Gambrels, or roof, of her house is the ever-expansive and infinite Sky.  I think she's hoping that her poetry may live a long life, and that the 'Possibilities' of her poetry are as infinite and expansive as the sky above.

The last stanza, to me, speaks to her having moved in, and made herself at home in her 'House'.  She is the Poet, and any Visitors that she receives are those entirely receptive to poetry, i.e., they are the fairest, in her opinion.  Finally, I love the image created with the concluding couplet, that of Emily's use of her Hands/to gather Paradise to her through the crafting of her lines of poetry.  Each time I finish reading this poem I'm left with a sense of 'admiration'.  Admiration for what she's created in these 12 short lines, and also the recognition of how much she admires the craft of poetry.

This poem, No. 657 in Thomas Johnson's 1955 edition of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, is thought to have been written by Emily sometime around 1862.  This is also poem No. 466 in Ralph W. Franklin's Reading Edition of The Poems of Emily Dickinson (1999).  From this point forward, I will reference both the Johnson and Franklin numbers for the poems, as many readers have one, or both, collections of her poetry.

Finally, I want to briefly mention the photograph that I've attached to this posting.  This is a photograph I took of Willa Cather's house in the tiny prairie town of Red Cloud, Nebraska.  I thought it appropriate to use a photograph of the house of a famous American writer of prose to illustrate and accompany one of the works of one of America's greatest poets.  My oldest daughter, Amber, and I enjoyed an incredibly fascinating day touring all of the Cather sites in and around Red Cloud, and visiting Willa's house was one of the high-points.  Oh, and do 'click' on the photograph and avail yourself of the larger view.

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The Dickinson Project--Poem No. 1463

Hooded Visorbearer

Our next poem in The Dickinson Project is one of my favorites.  It is a richly complex little gem that really works well on several levels.  Not only does it evoke some beautiful visual imagery, but it is also a bit of a 'head scratcher' too with its enigmatic couplet ending the poem.  This is an excellent example of Emily Dickinson's amazingly powerful control over her use of words.  Here is Dickinson's poem, No. 1463--

A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel--
A resonance of emerald,
A rush of cochineal--
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head,--
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy morning’s ride--

In thirty-five words, Emily has 'painted' a picture of a hummingbird every bit as grand and magnificent as that of her artistic contemporary, Martin Johnson Heade (attached at upper right).  I love her choice of words in the poems, as they give the reader the sense of rapid motion, bright color, a momentary microcosm of the natural beauty in her backyard, or even your own backyard.  Another Dickinsonian trait is her use of alliteration.  An "alliterate" poem is a poem that contains the repetition of an initial sound, usually of a consonant or cluster, in two or more words in a line or succeeding lines.  In this poem there are three different sets of alliteration occurring.  Obviously, the easy one to spot is using the letter "R" with Route, revolving, Resonance, Rush, and Ride.  Then there's Blossom and Bush, and in the seventh line, we find the word tum-b-led.  Finally, in the last two lines we have Mail and Morning's.  This is one terrific alliterative poem!

I think the other nifty quality of this little poem is that her choice of words enable the reader to easily visualize and almost experience the hummingbird's whirring motion and frenetic darting from flower-to-flower with her use of the words, Evanescence, Revolving Wheel (the rapidly revolving wings), and then Rush.  It is all so transitory, just like a hummingbird's presence.  Also, note that Emily reinforces these qualities of the little hummingbird with her use of the indefinite article "A" to lead each off.

I have to say that the last two lines are still a bit of an enigma to me.  I have puzzled over this couplet forever it seems, and I'm still really no closer to convincing myself of precisely what she is alluding to here.  I have commonly heard that because the hummingbird is moving so fast on his "route", going from flower-to-flower, that he's like a postman, and that he's bringing the mail from a far, faraway place.  But why "Tunis"?  Again, I have heard it speculated that Emily is giving a nod to her favorite playwright, Shakespeare, and his play, The Tempest, as a place so faraway that 'Claribel' cannot receive a note from her father 'Alonso' (The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1).  Well, I guess it sounds as good as the next theory.  I'd love to know your ideas on this couplet.

Finally, I want to just spend a moment and give you a bit of background on the painter, Martin Johnson Heade (1819-1904), who painted "The Hooded Visorbearer" that I've attached above.  Johnson Heade is generally considered a painter of the "Hudson River School", although there are those who think he didn't focus enough on painting landscapes like others in the school.  Johnson Heade was obviously fascinated with hummingbirds as he created many, many paintings that included them, and took trips to Central and South America to paint exotic species of hummingbirds in their native habitats.  He has a connection to Emily Dickinson too!  Johnson Heade had a young and very beautiful protege, Mabel Loomis Todd, who studied art under his tutelage.  During the summer of 1882, Mabel Loomis Todd and her husband, David Todd, went to Amherst, Massachusetts, where Mabel eventually entered into an adulterous affair with Emily's older brother, Austin Dickinson.  Apparently, Johnson Heade even went up to Amherst later that summer to try and convince Mabel to end the affair, but to no avail.  Following Emily's death in 1886, Mabel Loomis Todd helped Thomas Wentworth Higginson edit Emily Dickinson's poems for publication.  If you're interested in more of this story, I highly recommend Christopher Benfrey's wonderful book, A Summer of Hummingbirds--Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, & Martin Johnson Heade (The Penguin Press, 2008).

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The Dickinson Project--Introduction & Poem No. 12

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts.  With the exception of a short stint at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in South Hadley, she spent her entire life in Amherst, most of it in her family home.  Frankly, she brings new meaning to the term "prolific poet".  Emily Dickinson wrote just under 1,800 poems, of which less than twelve were actually published during her lifetime (it is unclear if there were 7 or 10 poems published).

Shortly after Emily's death on May 15, 1886, at the age of 55, her younger sister, Lavinia found bundles of her poems, neatly sewn together in fascicles.  Can you imagine opening a trunk or a drawer and finding what arguably must be regarded as one of the greatest American literary treasure troves ever discovered?  Anyway over the next few weeks and months I plan to bring much, much more of Emily Dickinson's personal life to the forefront in this writing project.  Truth be known, I am awaiting the arrival of Richard B. Sewall's seminal biography, The Life of Emily Dickinson (1998).

I think the other point I'd like to make before I post the first poem tonight, is that Dickinson was not only quite unique in her time, but is still considered so.  This is a woman who used words sparingly but powerfully.  She didn't title any of her poems.  She was extraordinarily unconventional in her use of capitalization and punctuation (e.g., her use of dashes is important in establishing rhythm and meter as the poem is read or recited).  Dickinson also was unique in her use of slant rhyme (aka half rhyme) in her poetry.  "Slant rhyme" is defined in Webster's New World Dictionary as, "rhyme in which there is close but not exact correspondence of sounds (e.g., lid, lad; wait, made)".  Why don't we just go ahead and put up one of Emily's poem, and we'll use it to explore some of this stuff--

12

The morns are meeker than they were--
The nuts are getting brown--
The berry's cheek is plumper--
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf--
The field a scarlet gown--
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.

(circa 1858)

There it is, short and ever so sweet.  What a wonderful portrait of the fall season in just these precious few words.  I just love the couplet "The berry's cheek is plumper--/The Rose is out of town."  It is just brilliant!  It feels like a happy little portrait of fall too, and leaves me with the impression that Emily loved seeing the changing seasons across the local landscape from her Amherst vantage points.

Okay, lets look at some of the technical aspects of this little poem.  First, there is what most of us recognize as some normal rhyming in the first stanza (i.e., Lines 1 and 3, and Lines 2 and 4).  Things get a little 'hinky' in the second stanza though, don't they?  Lines 2 and 4 are a great example of Emily's use of a slant rhyme (i.e., gown and on).  I also have to wonder if the last two lines aren't Emily having a little fun at her own expense.  She was known as a severely plain little woman who typically wore a white dress, and maybe she thought that she ought to add something to compete with that "gayer scarf" and "scarlet gown" of the autumn foliage.

Before you bail on me, just take a moment and read the poem aloud.  Use Emily's dashes at the end of her line to put that fractional pause in too.  Those dashes are ever so important and perfectly guide the poem's flow and rhythm.  See what I mean? 

Okay, I think this enough for now.  Rest assured that we will not only continue to explore the aesthetic and technical aspects of Emily's poetry, but we'll look at potential literary and artistic influences upon her work.  We're going to explore her relationships with family and friends over the course of her life too.  Oh, and I wanted to mention that over on the right side you can find a box for "The Dickinson Project", and in this box I will be keeping a listing of the references and resources that I will be using here.  Finally, I'm really excited to be starting this project, and because of it I know that I'm only going to fall even more in love with Emily Elizabeth Dickinson and her poetry.  I hope you do too!

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