Posts

The Benefits of Paying Attention

/6 Comments/in /by

I decided to spend the month of August browsing through, reading, and writing about Emily Dickinson because I knew that doing so would have huge benefits. And it wasn’t simply the benefit of getting reacquainted with Emily that I was after, though it was a major consideration.

I knew that spending a few minutes a day in this way would be like hitting my own re-set button–a way of paying close attention to the things that Emily Dickinson herself paid close attention to–

Quirky word choices
Colors & Birds & Flowers
Abrupt and unusual sentencing patterns
A fresh look at the play of light and what it might do in poetry

And of course some things that I don’t know yet that I don’t know.

Watching the eclipse with two of my daughters and my husband yesterday, at our local grade school, I was struck with the knowledge that this, too, was a poetic endeavor. We were not a racially diverse group, though the grade school generally is, we were different in configuration and (I suspect) in our political views. But for an hour we all watched the sky. Another family had eclipse glasses (lame of me not to have them, I know) and happily shared them (what a difference!). All across America–given our coast to coast solar phenomenon–people were doing the same, staring at the sky.  Here in Snohomish County, Washington, we had an eclipse of only 92%, and it was surprising that so little sun could keep everything alight. But it did get a little like dusk. And the temperature dropped. Its main effect was on us, those of us watching–letting down our own guard, feeling wonderstruck and grateful to have witnessed it.

That’s what I do when I study Emily Dickinson’s poems and fragments. Not every line is a wonder (such is the effect of fame, Nietzsche’s note about his lost umbrella becomes as important as his books). But I keep looking. The attention, itself, begins to feed into the spectacle. I let down my own guard, and I let something, someone else all the way in.

I’m told that the next total solar eclipse to be visible in the continental United States will be in seven years, April 8, 2024. But poetry, that’s available every day.

My God – He sees thee – 
Shine thy best –
Fling up thy Balls of Gold
Till every Cubit play with thee
And every Crescent hold –
Elate the Acre at his feet –
Upon his Atom swim –
Oh Sun – but just a Second’s right
In thy long Race with him!

-Emily Dickinson (J1178)

The View from Here: Poetry and Survival

/2 Comments/in /by

I just loved this. Credit to The Boynton Blog for posting it first.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3JIkjrz4h0&w=420&h=315]

A Letter for Emily Dickinson

/0 Comments/in /by

Poet Annie Finch

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. But here I am, finally spending a little time with my laptop and ready to introduce you to my NaPoWriMo Day Two poem.

This poem is from Visiting Emily, poems inspired by Emily Dickinson, and published by the University of Iowa Press in 2000. I love the simple first line, how Annie Finch just steps and begins talking to us, talking to Emily, and, at the same time, explaining some rather essential things about her own life. Bread. Sewing. Poetry.

If you want to use this poem as a kind of model for your poem today (or tomorrow), here are some of things you might notice about it (quickly, as it really is late-ish, and I already wrote my attempt for today): In addition to being an homage to Emily Dickinson, notice the cascade of rhymes, not only in the end of lines, but along the lines. Notice the repeated coda. If you’re looking for inspiration, think about the voice, utterly accessible, intimate, familiar. You could imitate the form, or you could just write a poem to Emily, or to another figure whose biography you’ve ingested.

A Letter for Emily Dickinson

Like me, you used to write while baking bread,
propping a sheet of paper by the bins
of salt and flour, so if your kneading led
to words, you’d take them, looping their thin shins
in your black writing, as they sang to be free.
You captured those quick birds relentlessly,
yet kept a slow, sure mercy in your deeds,
leaving them room to peck and hunt their seeds
in the white cages your vast iron art
had made by moving books, and lives, and creeds.
I take from you as you take me apart.

When I cut words you might never have said
into fresh patterns, pierced in place with pins,
ready to hold them down with my own thread,
they change and twist sometimes, their color spins
loose, and your spider generosity
lends them from language that will never be
free of you after all. My sampler reads,
“called back.” It says “she scribbled out these screeds.”
It calls, “she left this trace, and now we start,”
in stitched directions following the leads
I take from you, as you take me apart.

Day 26: Rebellion Cento

/0 Comments/in /by

 

Yesterday’s assignment at POETRYisEVERYTHING was to write a Cento, a poem consisting solely of lines from other poet’s poems. Today’s assignment is to write an “opposite or oppositional poem” (Chris admits to be deliberately vague). Having missed the Cento assignment, I thought pulling one together today would be a good way to be oppositional. And I think I found the perfect first line.

When I assign centos to students, we physically cut apart lines of poems and then reassemble them (printed out, very large type, taped on the whiteboards of the classroom — great fun).

I thought Emily Dickinson might help me out.  (It’s late, and I refuse to make more sense of this. “My syllable rebelled” is likely to become the start of something else for me.)

My syllable rebelled —
The Dews drew quivering and chill —
Out of the foxglove’s door —
To Stump, and Stack — and Stem —

My river waits reply
As all the Heavens were a Bell
Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
The Motion of the Moon