[Andrew Frisardi]

I like the whole poem. As Susan says, the bits about white in the octave are posed as questions, not answers.

It is stupid and boorish to accuse the poem of not being as good as Dickinson’s poem. There are poems about Milton that are not as good as Milton, ones about Shakespeare that are not as good as Shakespeare, etc. The world is big enough for all of it.

My one question is what Marshall mentioned about “their maker’s eye.” I did get the double reference to God and ED herself, but I’m not getting why her words would meet her eyes when she was dead.

Apropos of her tomb, I’ve always liked the story of Amherst poet Robert Francis, who, in his last years, moved to an apartment in Amherst center which he chose especially so he could see ED’s gravestone with its “Called Back” inscription. I wondered in this poem if the Called Back reference might be worked into it.

[Susan McLean]

Andrew, the part about white light filling her tomb is a reference to the afterlife, which ED was doubtful about, though I feel sure that the prospect of seeing her poems again would appeal to her. She herself never destroyed her poems, so part of her wanted them to survive. I did not know that story about Robert Francis.

Susan

[W T Clark]

Originally Posted by Andrew Frisardi

I like the whole poem. As Susan says, the bits about white in the octave are posed as questions, not answers.

It is stupid and boorish to accuse the poem of not being as good as Dickinson’s poem. There are poems about Milton that are not as good as Milton, ones about Shakespeare that are not as good as Shakespeare, etc. The world is big enough for all of it.

My one question is what Marshall mentioned about “their maker’s eye.” I did get the double reference to God and ED herself, but I’m not getting why her words would meet her eyes when she was dead.

Apropos of her tomb, I’ve always liked the story of Amherst poet Robert Francis, who, in his last years, moved to an apartment in Amherst center which he chose especially so he could see ED’s gravestone with its “Called Back” inscription. I wondered in this poem if the Called Back reference might be worked into it.

There is certainly a lot of clutter in the world. I just have reservations about adding to it: Andrew, even in the spirit of appreciation.

[W T Clark]

There is something deeply wrong in the attribution to Dickinson's poetry her "open heart". Not only is it a cliché: but it makes Dickinson into a kind of feminine writer spilling her emotional "self" in secret into poetry. But Dickinson's poetry is the ultimate rebuttal to that kind of emotional guilelessness: it is savage, often ironic, often terrifying, very rarely only one thing.
Hope this helps.

[Susan McLean]

Cameron, if one's heart is open, anything can pour out, however savage, ironic, terrifying, etc. Why should you assume I mean "open" in a clichéd way?

Susan

[Alexandra Baez]

Susan, time got the best of me, but I did want to say a few words about this poem. It has a lot of elements that I enjoy, but I was bothered by a somewhat “thinky,” “telly” tone through much of the piece that kept me at some remove until near the end. It seems that there must be a way to let the reader enter into the experience more in Ls 1-10. Still, I’d say that it seems not only acceptable, but even appropriate, for a poem about another poet to speak in a different voice than that of its subject. This conveys the sense of an interaction between two consciousnesses, which feels genuine and is potentially exciting. I like all your revisions.

In S1, I enjoyed the imaginative metaphorical connection between Emily’s dress and a blank page. Likewise, it is interesting (albeit a mite odd) to think of Emily shutting herself in drawers as a metaphor. And I like the imagination of the last two lines of S1 in how they evoke the immediacy of Emily’s own references to God. The spondaic “white light” feels just right. The varying references to white throughout the poem is a nice unifying leitmotif.

For me, things really take off at S2 L3. I love the wild, imaginative, daring romanticism of these last four lines. Uncannily, they convey something of the spirit of Emily without actually being in her style or even really her voice. It’s so interesting to think of Emily’s poems as a dower! And the last line really hit me between the eyes. Its paradox, to me, is the essence of Emily, and the double meaning of “locked chest” is fantastic. I grasped your intended meaning of “open heart” and certainly feel that she did have one, in a broader sense.

[Susan McLean]

Alexandra, "thinky" and "telly" sound accurate for the octave, but I am not convinced that either approach is always wrong. I got the idea for this poem when I was reading about Emily's white dress and I made the connection to a blank page. By the time she was wearing white, she was giving up on the idea of getting published. The octave is following my thoughts on some of the symbolism of white, connecting it to defeat, the erasure of writing, the iconography of heaven and the afterlife. If the content feels at a remove, that is because the mind asking the questions is the speaker, not Emily herself. There is a gradual shift in the sestet from scholarly questioning to imaginative witnessing, trying to picture the cataclysmic wedding at Calvary, half ecstatic union and half crucifixion. Her poems were found in a locked chest of drawers, so when I imagined her shutting herself in drawers, that self was her poems. I was trying to capture the paradox of her, and though I did have several specific poems of hers in mind, I did not want to allude to them, because then her poems themselves would take over. I wanted to evoke her without quoting her.

Susan

[Carl Copeland]

I agree with Alexandra that the sestet is stunning and “uncannily” conveys “something of the spirit of Emily without actually being in her style.” I like the sonnet as a whole and am happy her late comment gave me an opportunity to say so. (I’ve been under the weather and was afraid it was too late.) Fine work.