EDIS, Amherst Chapter, Poetry Conversation 7 April 2017

EDIS, Amherst Chapter, Poetry Conversation

7 April 2017

Facilitated by Lois Kackley

Fascicle 2 Sheet 4

Lois. Eleanor Heginbotham has done a book strictly on the fascicles. And, we paid special attention to her page 15, where she delineates some thoughts on the patterns that may or may not exist in the fascicles. Scholars reads these fascicles in a variety of ways – everything from proof that in fact she did want to publish, to self publish, and then there are those who treat them as worksheets, a kind of experiment that she played with for a number of years. But, nevertheless, they interest anyone that has a deep interest in Dickinson, and we decided that when we read these fascicles that we would look for some of these possibilities.

            She says “Dickinson has slyly left not only the doublings, such as in the prose/poetry pair but also a number of other ‘tight-rope tricks’ as well. For example, at times the poem at the center of a fascicle acts as a sort of a stile, up toward and away from which the fascicle moves. Elsewhere Dickinson seems to compile her poems as her niece and nephews must have played dominoes, ending one poem with an image that would begin the next. She may end the fascicle with a poem that seems both a culmination of the fascicle and as a precursor to the first poem so that, as is true in fascicle 1, the open book provides the visual trick of leading the reader back to the first poem from that on the back cover. … Dickinson has chosen to place poems on opposing leaves that are both reprises of each other and revisions of earlier poems. “

            She’s alerting you to look at the poems within as we take up the fascicles one by one.

            “She has made the poems (or the speakers in poems) address each other diagonally. She has pulled lines from certain poems and used them on the next page for titles to adjacent poems. She has used verses separated from previous verses on their new page to bridge proximate poems.”

            And there are other ways to think of it but we took that as a kind of a jump start to reading the poems. Today, we’re really drawing from a book that has become quite a classic among Dickinsonians, “The Passion of Emily Dickinson.” I know it’s one of Victoria’s favorites - Judith Farr. I’m not a big fan of a lot of conjecture on the Master poems, or any supposed lover or imaginary lover of Dickinson’s, but nevertheless I think it’s kind of fun to look at this fascicle, since Judith has pointed out – this is on the sheet that all of you have – just above the part that says Heart! we will forget him! which is at the center of our fascicle today, The reason I talked about this is because I’d like to spark our imagination as we look at these other poems, and notice that this poem – Farr says,

            “The fascicles reveal – in keeping with biography (which reminds us of Sue’s evenings for Bowles in the 1850’s) – that a man of his description came to capture her thoughts, challenging the beloved woman” – That being Sue. “A little poem (47) in fascicle two, probably written in the 1850’s even as Dickinson was writing “One Sister have I in our house,” cries,” and then she quotes this poem at the center of our fascicle today. Farr suggests this is the first poem in which we find Dickinson referring to the master, and you can agree or disagree.

            “In the first glimpse the fascicles provide of the figure (at first glancingly sketched) of Master.” It is the first glimpse. This is the first glimpse that the fascicles provide. “He is Dickinson’s light-bearer, even as the beloved woman (though herself crowned with light) is ultimately her consort in darkness, the empty mirror, and “blame.” Dickinson’s characteristic association of Master with light was natural to a Victorian intellectual, for literature and art in the 1860’s linked the heroic male with Apllo.”

            But, the idea that this little poem at the center of our fascicle that we’re reading today may be her very first reference, or of our first glance of the Master [inaudible]. So let’s read that poem first.

Victoria reads.

Heart! We will forget him!

You and I -- tonight!

You may forget the warmth he gave --

I will forget the light!

When you have done, pray tell me

That I may straight begin!

Haste! lest while you're lagging

I remember him!
                    -J47/Fr64/M50

Greg. I remember hearing someone else read this poem, reading the first line, “Heart! We will forget him!” I like the way Victoria read, “Heart! We will forGET him! [laughter] I exaggerated a little. The tone can be changed so much, depending on how you say it.

Victoria. I looked at that, you know. One, two, three, four, five exclamation marks. There’s an emphatic sense of her trying to use all her will. I guess that’s my interpretation of her punctuation. Give yourself a good talking to, you know?

Lois. Yes, she poses this conversation .. well, it’s sort of the one side; we haven’t heard the heart answer. Apparently, the heart in this little conversation is keeping her silence. In the last two lines there’s the implication that the heart is simply reluctant, right? Haste! Hurry up!

Greg. It’s heart vs. head. [general agreement]

Lois. It’s such a successful poem, in that it - just flows. Reading it, you have an intuitive understanding, don’t you, of the feeling that went into this poem. You men can substitute “Her” when you read this.

Jeff. No need to do that.

Lois. [laughs] Well, you might get a little meaning out of it if you reads it with the “Her” pronoun. Do any of you remember reading it for the first time? Do you remember what your reaction was, or what you thought about when you first read it?

Greg. I heard it on an audio tape. It’s something you feel. You feel the poem, yeah.

Lois. Is this affair of the heart likely to continue?

Judith. You wonder. She’s referring back to the heart.

Victoria. It reminds me of a Bob Dylan poem – song – in which he’s trying to forget this love, and he says something like, “I don’t even remember what her lips felt like on mine.” You know that he’s thinking about her all the time. “Most of the time, she isn’t even on my mind. She’s that far behind.”

Lois. A little bit of bravado, a little bit of fake sincerity.

Greg. I guess now that he’s won the Nobel prize it’s OK to bring him into our literary discussions. [laughter]

Robert. Well, since we’re discussing songs, I was just memorizing the lyrics to Wildwood Flower - and the same kind of theme.

Robert sings:

I'll think of him never/  I'll be wildly gay

So, maybe this should be set to Wildwood Flower really. And, maybe that was my initial response – this sounds like kind of a response to a popular song rather than a poem from a great poet. I guess I’ve been taking this attitude which I don’t try to justify, but I’ve been looking at [inaudible] these early poems with that air [inaudible]

Lois. Well, it’s one of her most famous poems.

Robert. Is it really?

Lois. And I found it – if I ever thought about it, I didn’t realize it came so early – but like a lot of the most famous poetry, there’s a [inaudible] that speaks to every one. Whereas some of the other poems we have to work a little harder to find ourselves in the poem. Well, let’s start with the broken wheel. The beginning of sheet four. The imagery that comes out of this poem is really amazing.

Jeff reads.
My Wheel is in the dark.
I cannot see a spoke -
Yet know it's dripping feet
Go round and round.

My foot is on the tide -
An unfrequented road
Yet have all roads
A "Clearing" at the end.

Some have resigned the Loom -
Some - in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ.
Some with new - stately feet
Pass royal thro' the gate
Flinging the problem back, at you and I.
                               -J10/Fr61/M49

Lois. Any comments?

Greg. Jeff, thank you for reading An un-fre’-quented road in stead of an An un-fre’-quented road and getting the meter right in there. Very hard to picture dripping feet on a wheel.

Lois. Anyone want to take a stab at what she’s talking about here?

Greg. Questions of mortality and immortality? Is there immortality? She’s in the dark, her foot is on the tide – we’re all on the same voyage, the same trip. Some have resigned the Loom, those are the women who’ve gone on, passed. There’s the tomb.

Someone. The busy tomb – that’s got me puzzled. What do you think?

Greg. I think perhaps the tomb is busy taking people in. They were pretty busy in those days.

Robert. There’s a poem where she’s more of a believer – more of a sense of a believer coming through. It seems like she’s not dismissing the stately feet that pass royally through the gate. So, it’s not a “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” kind of irony.

Lois. No, I think this is all taking place this side of the grave. I love the speaking of some having resigned the Loom, as if one had a choice. Those who have resigned the Loom are those who have died, and she does that elsewhere.

Robert. When I read that third stanza, it resonated with that poem we discussed some time ago, Not any more to be lacked/ Not any more to be known. At the last stanza there’s something like Some — rescinded the Wrench —
Others — Shall I say
Plated the residue of Adz
With Monotony.

That kind of phrasing – Some have – has a parallelism to the later poem, which I find a much better poem.

Lois. What other condition do you identify with? Like Greg said, we’re all in this together.

Dorothy. To me, the final three stanza’s seem to be about stepping into eternity, and those who have made it simply toss the problem back to us. But, I’m having trouble with this wheel. It’s like a water wheel. So, she’s talking about something continuing, but the rest of it doesn’t feel that way to me. It feels like people leave. They just leave and they don’t tell you where they’re going. So, I’m having trouble tying those two together. [crosstalk]

Nancy. I’ve been seeing it as a spinning wheel. [crosstalk] Later she talks about the Loom.

Dorothy. But why would a spinning wheel have dripping feet?

Robert. I was thinking of a paddle boat.

Burleigh. I was picturing a mill; so we all have different images.

Jeff. I saw it as a carriage wheel.

Victoria. I did too.

Judith. I was thinking of a coach, as in Because I could not stop for Death.

Robert. There’s a thread of water. There’s water in the first stanza, water in the second stanza, and, just looking up “loom,” loom can be the part of the oar that is not the blade. Someone who’s resigned the Loom may have stopped rowing the boat across the passage.

Jeff. What made you look that up? Did you suspect that it had an interior meaning?

Robert. I couldn’t figure out the Loom itself, so I finally got a picture of an oar, showing the blade and the loom, and I guess it’s a word that was popular back in Greek times; In Greek literature they would talk about the loom of the oar.

Victoria. This doesn’t feel to me like a watery place. You’ve got feet on the road …

Robert. Well, she didn’t live near the water, so she probably had a hard time talking about it during these earlier years.

Greg

“I never saw a Moor—

I never saw the Sea—

Yet know I how the Heather looks

And what a Billow be.”

Lois. Well, it starts out, to me, as a kind of lamentation. My Wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke!

Robert. Yeah, I get that sense, yeah. That second stanza’s a little more puzzling, isn’t it; My foot is on the tide. It has an image of I take my dog and visit the sea. My foot is on the tide, but on the tide. And tide being an unfrequented road is something I had trouble bringing together in my mind.

Lois. Say some more about what you were thinking when you were responding to this poem, your comment that we’re all in this together.

Greg. That’s the tide; I see the tide as carrying us all. I also notice that in the first two lines she expresses this difficult condition, and yet there are two lines that speak of some kind of confidence or faith, and that repeats itself, I think, in the second stanza –

Lois. Where do you see confidence?

Greg. Yet know it's dripping feet/ Go round and round. I know that much. I’m on this unfrequented road, but all roads must have an end somewhere. But at the end, for this final question she has no such confident recourse.

Dorothy. I’m beginning to see the stanzas fitting together now. It’s the mill wheel that drives it. It supplies the power, but what is it? I don’t know what it is.

Lois. I’m responding to it very similarly. It’s like, where am I going, what am I doing, why isn’t there a better roadmap? Why do I just have to learn from mistakes? Why can’t there be more clarity in this life?

Greg. A user’s manual.

Lois. Yeah, exactly. Where’s the freaking user’s manual? You know the church would tell her, “Read your Bible and you’ll know. Right’s right and wrong’s wrong.” And her response is her poetry. She’s not satisfied with that dogma. Life opens up in such a mystery every day.

Victoria. Well, I like what Greg said, because it gave me kind of something to hold onto, as I’m trying to go through the understanding that she does get that there are some knowns, at least in this life, but when you get to this place of the tomb, you can’t know it when you’re alive. So, there’s that limitation. Any earthly knowledge that she’s talking about here – it’s limited. You’re either alive with it, or you take it with you.

Lois. I love the authenticity of it. The refusal to accept trite explanations, and it comes out so strongly in that last line. When they’re gone, they just fling it all back.

Victoria. Isn’t that a great word? Flinging it back!

Lois. There’s just a barely controlled resentment at the dead, because you just left without – you know –

Robert. What is the problem they’re flinging back?

Greg. “Is immortality true?”

Lois. Yeah. We’re left with all the questions, and they’re flinging the questions back at us.

Robert. They have the answers.

Lois. Is that the assumption of the poem, that when you die you understand everything?

Robert. Well if you stately feet and Pass royal thro' the gate,

Greg. There are a couple of places in letters and poems where she speaks of the expression on the face of the dead as arrogance. Now they’re aloof. They’re not going to tell you anything.

Victoria. What was that poem we talked about – I heard a fly buzz when I died I- or any of those death poems where people are watching people die and see if they can get some hint – OK you’re getting closer to –

Greg. “We trust that she was willing/ We ask that we may be.”

Victoria. Yes, but that they would somehow reveal it, but then she’s saying here that they die and it just gets all flung back at us. That mystery, they take it with them.

Dorothy. One of Henry Thoreau’s friends asked him, as he was dying, what he saw, and Henry Thoreau replied, “One world at a time.”

Robert. Wow. To have the wherewithal to come up with that response –

Lois. – when you’re checking out.

Jeff. I think in the nineteenth century – isn’t it true? – that people thought that the dying person had an epiphany, and that that’s a part of what happens when you die.

Greg. They called it “the good death.”

Jeff. And, experience tells a lot of us, in this day and age, it doesn’t happen. Well, maybe it does occasionally, but commonly it doesn’t. You die.

Dorothy. And the mystery remains – what they thought at last, you know?

Lois. As you keep in mind that this center poem is the one that really lives, what these other poems might inform –

Victoria. As the stile poem?

Lois. Yeah. We feel that, because the center poem is so famous, and so successful on so many levels. So, if there is a means to her madness in this particular sheet we’ll try to pick it up. Who would like to read the next one?

Greg. I will, because I looked it up and the word can also be pronounced as per-riph’-ra-sis, which saves the meter.

There's something quieter than sleep
Within this inner room!
It wears a sprig upon its breast —
And will not tell its name.

Some touch it, and some kiss it —
Some chafe its idle hand —
It has a simple gravity
I do not understand!

I would not weep if I were they —
How rude in one to sob!
Might scare the quiet fairy
Back to her native wood!

While simple-hearted neighbors
Chat of the "Early dead" —
We — prone to periphrasis
Remark that Birds have fled!
                           - J45/Fr62/M49

Lois. Yes, for those who didn’t look up periphrasis, would you like to tell us what it means?

Greg. Periphrasis is talking around the topic rather than directly. Periphery is from the same root. Peri is around land phrasis is speech, so …

Robert. So, in stead of addressing painful topics, we say something like Birds have fled?

Lois. Yeah, that’s a good way – that’s a very literal way to look at it. What’s the tone of this poem? Does it have one tone?

Greg. That’s what’s interesting. The third stanza shifts the tone a bit. It’s more – I grope for the word – whimsical?

Robert. Yeah, it’s almost like The Walrus and the Carpenter, How rude in one to sob! [laughter]

Jeff. There’s even a kind of levity to it, just from the exclamation points. It’s not irreverent, but it’s not a poem that you’d write the day after someone you loved had died.

Lois. No, nor would you send it to someone who has lost someone. Exactly. The speaker in this poem is not grieving, l think it’s safe to say.

Victoria. Maybe she’s at a distance , and there’s more of a detachment, and she’s watched how various funerals, and deaths that have been observed, and all the chatting, and she sees it as all these things that go on after someone dies. But as you say, it’s not someone that she’s [inaudible] directly. You don’t feel the heart in it – the heart pain.

Lois. Maybe, I can say, someone who is witnessing, and maybe a little offended by the repetition of ritual, no matter who it is or what’s going on. Jessica Mitt wrote a whole book, she was so incensed by the money that changed hands and made capitalism of funerals, so there’s a little bit of that perhaps.

Greg. The fourth stanza sounds to me like a bit of insightful social commentary.

Lois. What is quieter than sleep? If sleep is the dead, then what is quieter than that?

Dorothy. I think she means death is quieter than sleep.

Lois. Oh, OK.

Robert. It is the corpse. [general affirmation], That she refers with several its in the first two stanzas sets a real tone for me… in the sense that it is not something that’s connected to any kind of grief. It’s an object.

Jeff. I get the sense that this is not a poem you would have seen from her late in her life. We know her heart had broken during her life, multiple times, maybe, but there’s no broken heart about this poem. And if I had the time, I was going to go through all prior poems to see if there – is there a broken heart before this? Do we see it anywhere, earlier? To me it’s biographically kind of relevant. It is one of those biographical questions we’re always thinking about.

Victoria. Well, she’s still so young here; how young? 29.

Lois. But she has felt passion. …. She’s certainly been introduced to her own capacity for deep intensity of emotion.

Victoria. But I don’t feel that in this poem. This feels detached.

Lois. Right. I’m just saying that this poem is not written by a twelve year-old. It’s written by someone who is acquainted with deep feeling, and I don’t think we can pass it off as by someone who doesn’t know intense emotion

Greg. She hasn’t begun writing it into her poems yet.

Victoria. Yes. Yes.

Greg. Alright, I can’t resist. There’s recently been uncovered a second source, an independent source, that strongly indicates that George Gould and Emily were close to getting married and her father nixed it. She was about nineteen when that happened.

Lois. Right. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.

Robert. Did he die a short time later?

Greg. No, her father said this guy has no prospects. He moved south and, according to one neighbor – the piano teacher, Penniman – it broke her heart. It was just a recollection left in her diary, and having no reason to make the story up ,,, Before that there the story had been in a biography by Genevieve Taggard, but it was third or fourth hand information so nobody could put much confidence in it. Then this second source showed up. …. So, if that’s true she felt plenty before she ever started writing any of this.

Lois. And what’s even more mysterious is the fact that he had a trunk load of letters from her that went missing.

Victoria. I’m kind of taking back what I said. I’m listening to what you’re all saying. I look at that third stanza, I would not weep if I were they —/ How rude in one to sob! Now I’m looking at that and thinking maybe she’s saying “How crass to make a show of your sorrow, so public a show.

Lois. Well, I don’t know, what was your word? Whimsical. There is whimsy in this poem - Might scare the quiet fairy/ Back to her native wood! It may be a less successful effort at what she accomplished in Heart! – we will forget him. In this poem it’s possible she was attempting the same kind of attempt at making light of deep sorrow.

Greg. Doesn’t it bring a smile, though?

Lois. It does bring a smile. And so does Heart! – we will forget him.

Robert. Is there an element of disingenuousness for those who are apparently grieving, but she’s not seeing something that’s genuine?

Polly. Yeah, there may be some sense of the simple-minded folk who just go through all the motions, and say all of the normal things; But I think also, just given the ending that she’s making that distinction that she makes in other places, where she’s aware of herself as a different kind of person. She’s a poet.

Lois. Yes, the speaker in this poem seems to want to voice an understanding that is not shared by the common mourner. Whether we agree with that or not. Actually our discussion has kind of led me to think that she is attempting the kind of attitude that she succeeds better at in Heart! – we will forget him. But that’s just a thought.

Jeff. I think it’s the third stanza that throws the rest of it off, especially the last two lines there, Might scare the quiet fairy/ Back to her native wood! – with an exclamation point. That’s the part that sounds just so off-handed.

Polly. Off key?

Jeff. Off-key, yes, exactly, that’s right.

Victoria. Why is that for your?

Jeff. Because, the tone of it – it’s light. It’s too light. I don’t want to say it’s irreverent – if you look at the first two stanzas, they hold up very nicely. That’s the way we think of Emily Dickinson; there’s something much more profound here. It has a simple gravity/ I do not understand – that’s what we think of aS Emily Dickinson, a very typical viewpoint, right? Then, in the third stanza, again you get the exclamation points, which trivialize it, and especially the last two lines, the way that’s expressed is almost trivial.

Victoria. I thought that too. It seemed really light-weight, and just this last minute I’ve been thinking this could have been someone that is kind of like an Ophelia, where this precious young woman that was so delicate, almost fairy-like, and to have people making this show, sobbing over her, was something that Dickinson would have found really objectionable. I just had this image of some delicate young woman that she might have known that had died, and the fragility of the spirit of this little waif – it would have been too much, people making such a big show of something so sad, and tender.

Lois. It’s a difficult poem, and I think we all recognized immediately that there was conflicting tone.

Greg. Maybe not. Maybe not conflicting after all. You know the poem about the cemetary?

What Inn is this

Where for the night

Peculiar Traveller comes?

Who is the Landlord?

Where the maids?

Behold, what curious rooms!

No ruddy fires on the hearth —

No brimming Tankards flow —

Necromancer! Landlord!

Who are these below?

But she doesn’t know what this is. That’s the speaker. She’s saying, what is this peculiar this? What is this? Quieter than sleep! What’s that sprig on her breast? Some chafe its hand, I notice that people kiss it – why are they bawling like that? The speaker is as if she doesn’t know what death is. I think that’s the voice here, and I think that makes all four stanzas consistent – consistent mood. It’s kind of weird.

Lois. No, I like that. That’s very good. If what you’re saying is true, and it sounds very valid, it expresses in a very poetic way but also very quiet way our desire to not look at death. We all want to not look at death. We spend our lives as if we’re going to go on forever until we get so old that we have to start making decisions. I think, Greg, you’ve given voice to Dickinson’s ability to give voice to that instinct not to look. I think it’s very valid.

Jeff. She’s maybe assuming the persona.

Polly. Yeah, I was just going to say that, that the speaker’s not necessarily the poet.

Jeff. It’s the innocent view of the child, sort of. That would fit, I think.

Lois. A child’s reaction.

Robert. The last stanza – simple-hearted neighbors – it’s interesting that she’s using simple-hearted not simple-minded.

Greg. Yeah – big difference.

Robert reads.

I keep my pledge.

I was not called—

Death did not notice me.

I bring my Rose.

I plight again,

By every sainted Bee—

By Daisy called from hillside—

by Bobolink from lane.

Blossom and I—

Her oath, and mine—

Will surely come again.
                      - J46/Fr63/M50

Lois. She’s got a period with that first line, like it’s almost a title.

Victoria. And then another one in the third.

Lois. So, perhaps she wants us to read I was not called—/ Death did not notice me. We just got through with one where we said the speaker was not wanting to notice death, and in this poem death doesn’t notice her.

Victoria. So she’s made a pledge or an oath. To … life? Sainted Bee – Daisy – Bobolink. Her trinity – “In the name of the Bee and the Butterfly and the Breeze.”

Jeff. That sounds like a great association for this poem.

Lois. Boy, there’s a lot left out of this poem.

Dorothy. The way she starts with I keep my pledge, and then she says I plight again. It sounds like she’s saying that “I must live.” Because I pledged I would, I keep my plight.

Victoria. I think the her is referring to the Blossom. [General Agreement]

Lois. What could prompt a poem like this? I keep thinking of that first poem that we read, where she was talking about the – my word was lamentation because there’s so little to help us know what to do in difficult circumstances, or just like Greg was saying – the lack of a user’s manual for life. Then this poem I can’t help but seeing as a follow-up to that poem. “I don’t know any more than I did, but I keep my pledge; I’m not dead.

Robert. Those first three lines – she was not called – it’s like she’s on a list – the list of those called to heaven? Is there a shift to where she’s kind of focusing on nature, and that’s where her real faith is? The Bee, the bobolink ….

Lois. Maybe that’s a reference to what keeps her going – Nature.

Robert. Is there a relationship between the pledge in the first line and the oath in the next to last line?

Lois. Victoria seemed to think so.

Robert. What is the oath.

Lois. Good question.

Victoria. To life, I think. Death did not notice me, so then I pledge to live, and somehow I got passed over. I was lucky compared to the poor person in the previous poem. I pledge to live and bring the rose, and watch the bee, land call the bobolink from the lane and watch the bee. I pledge to get right in there with life.

Greg. The world is calling her. She wasn’t called to death, so the world is calling her. I don’t see – she’s made her oath, she wasn’t called – so why an oath again – until the next time death passes her over?

Jeff. I think it’s “Blossom and I will surely come again.” It’s her oath and my oath that we will surely come again.

Greg. Oh!

Jeff. It’s an affirmation. I’m alive. I’m going to be here next year too.

Lois. And, I think here the blossom is symbolic of poetry, and that speaks to a lot of confidence.