EDRC 09 September 2016

Emily Dickinson Reading Circle, Heath Massachusetts

Topic: Fascicle 40

Facilitated by Margaret Freeman

09 September 2016

Poem 1:

The only News I know
Is Bulletins all Day
From Immortality.

The Only Shows I see—
Tomorrow and Today—
+ Perchance Eternity—

The Only One I meet
Is God—The Only Street—
Existence—This + traversed

If Other News there be—
Or Admirabler Show—
I'll tell it You—

+ Three – with Eternity – And some Eternity
+traverst –  + signify - testify
                                      -J827/Fr820/M405

[  To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/6Jqv2mZCLx4  ]

Barre. I have two questions about this. One is Tomorrow and Today the reversal Eternity is timeless? There is no time in eternity. You no longer count, so why is she reversing? The other question is, three with eternity? What’s the reference? I’m missing something with the three.

Margaret. Oh! Tomorrow and Today and Eternity – that’s three.

Barre. So you’re including the temporal with the eternal.

Margaret. Right. And the reversal is because of the meter, isn’t it? If you say Today and Tomorrow you’ve got a different rhythm.

Barre. That’s too easy. [laughter]

Someone. Isn’t her poem, “Forever is composed of Nows” another way of saying that?

Harrison. It’s tomorrow before it’s today.

Barbara. It’s interesting though; she talks about tomorrow, which hasn’t come yet. She talks about today, the present; she talks about eternity which – “who knows?” –She doesn’t mention yesterday- the past.

Connie. That’s because it’s about the News.

Margaret. It’s history – no news. It’s not news.

Mary Clare. How are we hearing the word Immortality? What do you think she means by that?

Harrison. The answer is in all of her poems.

Mary Clare. Is there some summary, or consensus, or something?

Connie. There are as many variations as there could be.

Margaret. Well, she’s using it as a noun – immortality – as something that can provide news, right? – because the bulletins are coming from immortality. So, it makes me think of “that which is alive, not dead.”

Connie. But immortality seems like a place, almost. It produces bulletins.

Margaret M. She uses the word so often. When death stops for her it’s her and immortality [“Because I could not stop for death”]. It’s really hard to pin her down to what she means by that!

Greg. She called immortality her “flood subject.”

Sandy. What did she mean by that?

Greg. Flood of tears, flood of thought, flood of emotion … overwhelming….

Margaret. Well, that question just obsessed her whole life – whether there is life after death. I think of the poem that she sent to Charles Clarke, Wadsworth’s relative or friend, where she asks, “Where go we - /  Go we anywhere/ Creation after this?” That was her ultimate question, and she could never answer it. She could never say “We don’t know.” … Immortality isn’t something that kicks in after death; it’s always with us. What I love about this poem is the all Day. She’ not just getting bulletins from immortality. It happens all the time!

Greg. Yeah, yeah, I think that’s what it was like for her.

Barre. So, is she rejecting the religious view in the last stanza?

Greg. I don’t think she’s addressing it.

Barre. I’m reading it as “If there really is a heaven out there, if the angels are waiting for me, I’ll let you know.” Here is eternity.

Margaret. But again, it’s that absolute love of life that she has in her poems. “The only news I know is what I get, all day – and the only shows I see – and I notice that in the final stanza she repeats those words – news, show, more admirable than these three [Tomorrow, Today, Eternity], I’ll let you know. This is what life is. This is the present. And that’s what poetry is; it’s bringing you into the present. For me this is a very iconic poem, in that respect, because it’s making it real.

Margaret M. The Only Street – Existence – I like that.  I mean, it’s a very direct poem, for her. [laughter]

Harrison. It could be something about her role. She sees herself as a messenger, or a conveyor, of news from the other side. “This is my Letter to the World  …. The simple News that Nature told.”

Margaret. That’s right, and she’s writing as a poet. This is what poets do, right? They bring the news.

Sandy. Why would she say The Only One I meet/ Is God?

Margaret. Well, as Margaret [M] said, everywhere is God – it’s a pantheistic view, isn’t it? It’s what James Carse calls “The religious case against belief.” You don’t necessarily succumb to the belief that Jesus Christ died for our sins and all of that – that’s “belief.”

Greg. “I do not support doctrines.”

Margaret. Right. That’s what she said. The anima that infuses the world – that is God – at least for me, and I think for Dickinson too.

Someone. Where does she put the devil?

Margaret. That’s interesting. She doesn’t.

Someone. Does she ever?

Margaret. Yes. She gets gothic when she talks about Satan.

Someone. Does she ever use the word evil?

Margaret. I think she does. I remember I was sort of surprised when I looked it up. Let’s have a look. [consults concordance] Yes, in the poem that begins It’s 1217 in Johnson, 1255 in Franklin.

Fortitude incarnate

Here is laid away

In the swift Partitions

Of the awful Sea—

Babble of the Happy

Cavil of the Bold

Hoary the Fruition

But the Sea is old

Edifice of Ocean

Thy tumultuous Rooms

Suit me at a venture

Better than the Tombs
                        -J1217/Fr1255/M560

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/3q_9PqQgY7U  ]

For Hoary she has alternates, wrinkled, arid, shrunken, Evil, with a capital E, rigid

Harrison. “Evil the Fruition.”

Someone. That doesn’t make sense though. It doesn’t count as an alternate if it doesn’t make sense. [laughter]

Margaret. And all of these are negative or loaded words, right? ……. Well, the next one, “Wert Thou but ill” (Poem 2)

Connie reads.

Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee

How long a Day I could endure

Though thine attention stop not on me

Nor the least signal, Me assure—

Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country—

And Mine—the Door

Thou paused at, for a passing bounty—

No More—

Accused—wert Thou—and Myself—Tribunal—

Convicted—Sentenced—Ermine—not to Me

Half the Condition, thy Reverse—to follow—

Just to partake—the infamy—

The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou—

Permit to be

The Housewife in thy low attendance

Contenteth Me—

No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it—

To die—or live—

The first—Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee—

For Life—be Love—

                              - Fr821/J961/M405

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/daPA5tFkJ-8 ]

Someone. This is one where you don’t have any idea who’s on the other side of the exchange.

Margaret M. But maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s just about an attitude that she wanted to express.

Harrison. Yes, it makes sense.

Margaret. A lot of poems in this fascicle have to do with this attitude that she’s expressing here.

Barre. How would you describe the attitude?

Margaret M. Of wanting to give even though she gets nothing back.

Margaret. Well I think that it’s a real love poem in the sense of – in a wedding ceremony, where you must love honor and obey – till death do us part – whatever happens. If you’re ill, if you’re a stranger, if you’re accused of some infamy – if you were dead, I would want to attend you. So, whatever life has to offer, you embrace it.

Someone. It’s the third stanza that I can’t quite make out. What is that all about?

Barre. If this person went on trial, she would not think him guilty no matter what happened.

Elizabeth. Even if she were the judge, and in Ermine, she would choose to take the sentence with him. She would rather have the infamy than the ermine.

[ A discussion ensued about whether this poem might be toward an imagined love as a way for the poet to project herself into such situation]

Margaret. I would like Greg to read “If I may have it when it’s dead,” because I think it just resonates and reverberates with this poem. See what you think. It’s 577 in Johnson and 431 in Franklin.

Greg. I never liked this poem. [laughter]

If I may have it, when it's dead,

I'll be contented—so—

If just as soon as Breath is out

It shall belong to me—

Until they lock it in the Grave,
'Tis Bliss I cannot weigh—
For tho' they lock Thee in the Grave,
Myself—can own the key—

Think of it Lover! I and Thee
Permitted—face to face to be—
After a Life—a Death—We'll say—
For Death was That—
And this—is Thee—

I'll tell Thee All—how Bald it grew—
How Midnight felt, at first—to me—
How all the Clocks stopped in the World—
And Sunshine pinched me—'Twas so cold—

Then how the Grief got sleepy—some—
As if my Soul were deaf and dumb—
Just making signs—across—to Thee—
That this way—thou could'st notice me—

I'll tell you how I tried to keep
A smile, to show you, when this Deep
All Waded—We look back for Play,
At those Old Times—in Calvary,

Forgive me, if the Grave come slow—
For Coveting to look at Thee—
Forgive me, if to stroke thy frost
Outvisions Paradise!
                             -J577/Fr431/M172

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/VkxhHDNXOBY ]

[more laughter]

Margaret. It reminds me of Keats’ poem …

[Margaret refers to a fragment by John Keats]

This living hand, now warm and capable

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold

And in the icy silence of the tomb,

So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights

That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood

So in my veins red life might stream again,

And thou be conscience-calm’d—see here it is—

I hold it towards you. 

Daisy. It’s really gloomy.

Margaret. Oh yes, it’s a gothic poem.

Margaret M. It’s like an old Bela Lugosi film.

Margaret. But you can see what Margaret meant. It’s a fantasy

Margaret M.. It’s a muse. It generates her emotions. She gets to feel the deepest passion.

Margaret. Well, apparently she was incredibly emotional, especially in the younger period, and she'd would have intense friendships that were just too much for her friends. … Shall we go on to the next one”

Poem 3,

Mary Clare reads.

Midsummer, was it, when They died—

A full, and perfect time—

The Summer closed upon itself

In Consummated Bloom—

The Corn, her furthest kernel filled

Before the coming Flail—

When These—leaned unto Perfectness—

Through Haze of Burial—

                                      - Fr822/J962/M406
[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/8H72fxMip8k ]

These – Do you suppose that refers to the kernels?

Margaret M. I think it’s a positive kind of poem. You’ve got the harvest, which is a natural thing. A fulfilled thing.

Elizabeth. She’s equating it with dying – leaning into perfectness.

Margaret. For us, what is the perfectness of corn? It’s when we have cut it. The kernels are filled to fruition, right?

Connie. We’ve done our job. We’re complete.

Greg. An alternate for these is “these two.” So it must be the corn and the person who died.

Daisy. What person?

Greg. Midsummer was it when they died.

Connie. When your furthest kernel is filled, then you get chopped down - When you’re fully ripe.

Greg. But this corn achieves its perfectness before the coming flail. Isn’t the corn an analogy with the person or persons whose lives have passed?

Daisy. I think so.

Barbara. I’m not looking at it that way. I’m looking at when you’re your most perfect you’re in your youth, but mentally probably when you’re older. If you die in your peak of physical perfection, you’re dying really young.

Connie. No, when your kernel is filled, then you can die.

Barbara. If you’re older and you’re wise – I can read it both ways.

Margaret. Yes, but if you’re a gardener – I mean, that very first stanza talks about the consummated Bloom of midsummer when the flowers have reached their perfection, and then they begin to fall. The petals will fall and we have to rake them up. [laughter].

Elizabeth. So, can we say that when we say they died that we’re talking about the flowers, and hen we talk about these in the second stanza it’s the corn and the flowers?

Margaret. I think of it though as a way of reconciling herself to grief – of the loss of people and that this is a perfect time to die – and the Indians, too, would say “this is a perfect time to die.” That’s an attitude

Daisy. Haze of Burial – what is that?

Elizabeth. That we don’t know where they’re going. We can’t see clearly. We don’t know what death is.

Margaret. Yes, haze is a lovely word, isn’t it? If we said “fog of burial” it wouldn’t work, would it? Shall we have the next poem?

Elizabeth reads.

The first Day that I was a Life

I recollect it—How still—

That last Day that I was a Life

I recollect it—as well—

'Twas stiller—though the first

Was still—

"Twas empty—but the first

Was full—

This—was my finallest Occasion—

But then

My tenderer Experiment

Toward Men—

"Which choose I"?

That—I cannot say—

"Which choose They"?

Question Memory!
                   - J902/Fr823/M40

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/cBmn5iNn8eU ]

Margaret. There’s that They again! Who the hell are They?” [laughter].

Greg. Is this a proleptic poem?

Margaret M. I guess so. If you recollect your last Day,

Connie. It’s speculative.

Margaret M. Yes, but compare it to “I heard a Fly buzz when I died.” This fascicle does not have a lot of imagery in it.

Greg. I think the question she’s asking is, “Would I rather be back at the beginning of life, or is it better here where I am now.

Elizabeth. It’s not about the Men? My tenderer Experiment Toward Men?

Harrison. That’s Mankind, probably.

Greg. The word Experiment had a more general meaning in her time – something in nature – something being tried. “This whole Experiment of Green.”

Connie. The first two stanzas feel like she was just having so much fun.

Daisy. I don’t read it that way. I read it as “This is a serious situation that I’m trying to solve here.

Margaret. I think the fun that you’re hearing in the first part is – she’s already trying to weigh the two, and compare them. This one’s still but this one’s stiller. This one’s empty, etc. She’s going back and forth, so when she gets to that final stanza, it’s almost like a coda. Which choose I? I cannot say, be cause of that vacillation. You know, when I was first preparing the fascicles, I just thought that They were the first day and the last day.

Greg. Yeah. That’s what I just now came to.

Margaret M. Another possibility is that They refers to the Men toward whom the Experiment of life was tendered. She sees her life as a tenderer experiment toward mankind – that was my life - compared to what I am now. So, Which Choose They might be the other people in her life.

Sandy. I think it challenges the intellect because it’s an emotional choice.

Margaret. And why Question Memory! - with the exclamation point?

Harrison. She’s inquiring of it and doubting it.

Margaret. It’s directed to us, the readers. It’s to question our memory, not hers. We wouldn’t be choosing her first day or last day, we’d be choosing our own.

Esther. You might remember the early days of your life in a very golden, glowing sort of way.

Margaret. And Harrison, that would explain the exclamation point – your understanding of Question. Doubt your memory.

Sandy. And why is it in quotes? She’s giving somebody a voice there.

Margaret. This is one of the reasons, Sandy, that I said at the beginning that there’s a lot of colloquial dialogue in this fascicle.

Margaret M. It would seem that somebody outside the poem is asking, “Which Choose I,” and “Which Choose They?” Which one do you choose, and That I cannot say.

Connie. It’s as if she wrote the poem in response to someone who asked, “Which would you rather have?”

Margaret M. Or, she’s just getting outside of her Circumference, which she like to do, to look back on life and death. If you say “I remember the day I was born” and “I remember the day that I died, you’re looking at life from the outside, right?

Margaret. If you take Life literally, yes. But what if I were to take it metaphorically? In the sense of, “The first day that I was alive,” “when I first came to an awareness,” – that’s not the day of your birth. That’s when you really felt for the first time that you were a living being. And then, The last Day that I was a Life was not your death, it’s the day before. She’s still alive. Let’s say you had an incredible life experience, and you felt that it changed your life, and whatever that was is finite. It ends at some point. I’m not talking about birth and death now, but about this feeling of life. The last day that I was a life is the consummation, if you like, of that first day that I was a life. So, that first day and the last day are making a circle around this experience.

Esther. She doesn’t say “The first day that I was alive.” That would be the conventional way to say it, but The first Day that I was a Life, and she capitalizes it. I love that!

Margaret. I do too, and you know, before I came across this poem I always had the impression that Dickinson never talked about birth. Let’s look at the next one. It’s a very short poem.

Elizabeth reads.

A nearness to Tremendousness —

An Agony procures —

Affliction ranges Boundlessness —

Vicinity to Laws

Contentment's quiet Suburb —

Affliction cannot stay

In Acres — Its Location

Is Illocality —
                    - J963/Fr824/M407

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to [ https://youtu.be/f7PFNmMGcec ]

Is that really a word –Illocality? [laughter]

Greg. She made it up.

Daisy. It’s a wonderful word!

Margaret M. That’s a really major concept in Japanese thought. No place. It’s the non-reified.

Margaret. That’s what Masako was talking about. Mu. The “not there.”

Margaret M. One thing that I’d like to suggest, that really helped me in reading this poem - Vicinity to Laws/ Contentment's quiet Suburb go together. And Affliction cannot stay In Acres — Its Location Is Illocality. Other than that, I think this is just the clearest poem she ever wrote, in a way. And yet look, it has almost no imagery in it – just the suburb – and acres.

Margaret. They’re all general words rather than concrete. Abstract. Even Suburb is abstract.

Margaret M. But it’s not as abstract as Illocality! [laughter]

Harrison. This puts me in mind a little bit of “After great pain a formal feeling comes” – the effect of pain is to bring you into some sort of consciousness.

Margaret. If you’d like to go to the next poem, why don’t we read it together, because it’s a dialogue. Do you want to be Jesus?

Leslie. What? [laughter]

Margaret. Ready?

Leslie. Don’t crucify me. [More laughter]

Leslie and Margaret read in dialogue.

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—

Where may be your House?

"I am Jesus—Late of Judea—

Now—of Paradise"—

Wagons—have you—to convey me?

This is far from Thence—

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—

Trust Omnipotence"—

I am spotted—"I am Pardon"—

I am small—"The Least

Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—

Occupy my House"—

Margaret. OK, so this is a fairly clear poem, isn’t it, once you perform it. And the phrase, of course, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” … It’s interesting that the respondent is saying I do not know you.

Mary Clare. I’m disappointed in this poem, because it doesn’t have any surprises.

Margaret. No riddles – but the last alternate for Occupy my House is Occupy my Breast.

Mary Clare. Now that is interesting.

Ann. It’s interesting to me that Jesus’ Phaeton, which is mythological, rather than religious …

Margaret. Isn’t phaeton a term for a carriage in the nineteenth century though? [general agreement] She’s playing on the sermon on the mount, though. The meek shall inherit the earth, etc. But what is she doing in this poem? – That’s what I’d like to know.

Margaret M. Is she doing kind of the opposite of what she was doing in Wert Thou but ill? – “I’ll take care of you.” Is that why she put it in this fascicle?

Daisy. I can’t imagine why she wrote it, even.

Mary Clare. Maybe it’s just a dud.

Margaret. I think Mary Clare is right. Maybe we’re wrong to thing that everything Dickinson wrote is wonderful.

Leslie. One thing that occurred to me, looking at the fascicle, is that just as you were looking at the word “sweet,” and how many times the word sweet was mentioned, I was really struck by locality/illocality – how many references she has to the word home. Particularly 964, 965, 967 and 969, they all use the word home – and this idea of home on earth and home in heaven, and where is it? So, I think that’s what it may be doing in the fascicle. It’s a thematic structure – for me anyway – around a house and a home and what is it and are you invading my house, or am I welcome in your home … So that’s why – maybe – I think it was put in here.