Emily Dickinson International Society - Amherst Chapter, March 2019

Emily Dickinson International Society - Amherst Chapter - Poetry Conversation

March, 2019

Fascicle 7, Sheet 3

Facilitated by Lois Kackley

Lois. We enjoy, when we can, picking up on themes that are introduced in these early poems, to see what she's done with them in her later work. We don't always do that, but sometime it happens that way. I'll just say, for the sake of conversation, because if you don't agree with me, that's fine too. But, I find this sheet, in a variety of ways, approaching the topic of death, with one exception of the one right smack in the middle, which kind of stands alone. I'll see what you think of this. I'll call this first poem the "intellectual daffodil."

Greg D reads.

Like her the Saints retire,

In their Chapeaux of fire,

Martial as she!

Like her the Evenings steal

Purple and Cochineal

After the Day!

"Departed" — both — they say!

i.e. gathered away,

Not found,

Argues the Aster still —

Reasons the Daffodil

Profound!

                 -J60/Fr150/M90

I read "that is" in stead of "I.E." I don't know ...

Lois. Yeah, I was a little startled, too, to see that she'd have a poem with I.E.

Adrianna. I don't think she's ever done that.

Lois. I don't either. I'm glad that Victoria's here, and some of you others who are familiar with flowers, because it occurred to me here that this poem may have been inspired by a flower, or the behavior of a flower. Did that occur to you?

Victoria. Yes. I think it was inspired by tulips. Purple tulips, or cochineal - pinkish-red tulips - and the word martial. Tulips are flowers that stand up straight, they're the ones with the tall stem, so they have that kind of martial - but the petals open in the day to catch the sun, and you can look down and see how beautiful their centers are, then they close up in the evening. So, Like her the Evenings steal-  she's describing the way they close up. I don't know what she meant by the Aster still and the Daffodil - it's like the flowers are having a conversation in the garden. I mean, asters aren't really blooming in the spring when the tulips are, so this is kind of a fantasy situation that she's set up, because daffodils and tulips will bloom at the same time, but asters won't. They're in autumn.

Adrianna. I think from the aster and the dafodills, it's their point of view. They're the ones believing all this, and they've been gathered now,as flowers. That must be what happened. That's how I looked at it.

Greg. In one poem, Some Rainbow - coming from the Fair, she's apparently addressing tulips on a hillside with, "Behold, whose regiments are these?" There's the martial element again.

Victoria. Oh! That comes up in our next fascicle, and they're wild tulips, I think she was referring to.

Lois. So, she found a metaphor in the flowers for the absence, or the retiring, of saints. It's an interesting word, that the flowers that close up at night and open in the morning,- so, she's finding a metaphor for the saints in these flowers, and the saints are really the only human reference we find in this poem, isn't it? What would the Saint's Chapeaux of fire be?

Victoria. A halo? You picture saints and they have that golden halo - a gold aura around their heads.

Lois. Yeah, an iridescent halo in the art. So, the martial - she's using this flower as an example of this quality of the saints being martial, right?

Greg D. Well, there's a human reference, or at least a personification, with the pronoun she.

Lois. Sure, yeah. I wonder if she's leading us to regard the saings in a female form as well. I like that you're pointing out the felale reference in her and she as sort of a hint as referring to a female saint, but not necessarily.

Greg D, I think it refers to the true subject of this poem, who is somewhere off - somewhere else - not actually in the action of the poem, but is referred to; some person.

Greg M. - which is possibly the flower.

Lois. Yeah, that's how I was taking it, but you're right, it doesn't -

Greg D. Well why would she call a flower "she?" I mean she could, but why would she?

Greg M. Well - she does. "Encountered in my garden/ An unexpected Maid." She called them little maids

Victoria. "She dwelleth in the ground/ Where dafodills abide" Another poem about tulips was "She slept beneath a tree/ Noticed but by me." There was a personal connection to her.

Greg M. They were like people to her. [general agreement]

Lois. There's a definite inspiration in a gazillion aspects of nature that are very ripe for metaphors indicating aspects of human existance, so yeah, when you first pick this poem up, you don't necessarily think of a flower, and we certainly don't have to agree that whens she says Like her the Saints retire, it could be something else altogether. Why do you think "departed: is in quotations?

Greg D. It's a quote - they say.

Greg M. The departed. Our dear departed.

Lois. So, there's some confusion about whether or not this is a final departing, right? If it comes back the next day, it may look dead at night, but if it comes back the next day, it's far from dead.

Victoria. Or, it comes back the next year, because tulips are bulbs. There's this legaleze, like after, the dafodil, arguing, reason. she slips that in.

Lois. So, what's the argument?

Greg D. That gathered away/ Not found. That is, gathered away. Departed, gathered away, that is. In other words, departed is gone forever; gathered away is how a flower could be dried, put away, or it could be grass or for her herbarium sheet. If we're talking about someone going to heaven, that could be another thing.

Victoria. Or, bulbs die back, so, you don't see them until next year.

Mary. Yeah, she started with retire - first line. Then, there's the possibility that someon's departed. So, there's like a debate going on; departed i.e gathered away - different opinions here.

Lois. Not found - doesn't mean there gone. I find that kind of pivotal.

Mary. And the fact that she put quotes only around departed - so that that is the opposite oppinion, that she disagrees with.

Jan. So, you were saying, the central theme was death? And, she's playing around with it, like, is it temporary, like flowers? She just completely tosses that in the air. Departed? Gathered away? Profound just leaves you there.

Lois. Just leaves you there. Right. Very imprecise. ... I think our discovery, so often, of Dickinson's death poems, remains fresh, because she gives no final conclusion. Let's go on to the next poem, and I'll ask you if you agree with me that in this case Death is the cat.

Greg M. reads.

Papa above!

Regard a Mouse

O'erpowered by the Cat!

Reserve within thy kingdom

A "Mansion" for the Rat!

Snug in seraphic Cupboards

To nibble all the day

While unsuspecting Cycles

Wheel solemnly away!
                          -J61/Fr151/N90

Echoes of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers?"

Victoria. Cristanne has a note for this one: John 14:2 "In my father's house are many mansions."

Lois. The imagination in this poem - the perspective, is just really funny.

Mary. Should there be a comma between Papa and above?

Lois. You mean, is she addressing Papa or is she just talking about hi? Good question. In fact, she indented it, which comes close to giving it a title. I'm not saying it is, but it's unusual, I think, for her to give a first line that kind of indentation.

Mary. But, she is addressing him, because she says " within thy kingdom."

Lois. When you [addressing Greg M ] said " Echoes of "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers," you were thinking of the second verse, right?

Greg M. Yeah, unsuspecting Cycles/ Wheel solemnly away, "Grand go the Years in the Crescent above them" ...

Victoria. "Safe in their alabaster Chambers," Snug in seraphic Cupboards.

Lois. That poem was not too much longer than this one, if the dating is correct. It appears in fascicle 10

Greg M. He's in his seraphic cupboard, he's dead, you know, and the whole universe is just rolling by. time doesn't mean anything anymore. It's a similiar image.

Lois recites.
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers-

Untouched by Morning-

And untouched by Noon-

Lie the meek members of the Resurrection-

Rafter of Satin-and Roof of Stone!

Grand go the Years-in the Crescent-above them-

Worlds scoop their Arcs-

And Firmaments-row-

Diadems-drop-and Doges-surrender-

Soundless as dots-on a Disc of Snow-

Does anyone have any other thoughts besides Cat being a metaphor for death here?

Greg D. She has so many ways of talking about what I guess we might call deep time.or, larger than human cycles. So she has a mouse, or a rat, nibbling away in heaven while all of these eons are rolling away. Pretty amazing. It's humorous language and images for very abstract, deep stuff.

Greg M. Yeah, many read Alabaster Chambers as ironically humorous. Meeks members, they're waiting for the resurrection. Still waiting ... waiting....

Victoria. The first stanza seems to me like a prayer, first and second person [singular]. "Our Father who art in Heaven," hear my prayer. Then, it takes a turn to, I guess, the third person. There's a sense of detachment there, right?

Lois. Right, it doesn't have the flow of later poems. but there is a personalness sto this, when you use a personal reference like Papa, it immedialtely makes you feel the personal, private type of conversation that is attempted. Regard a Mouse - how much more humble are you asking God, or Papa to be. And, besides the miniaturization there's the horrible implication of being O'erpowered by the Cat, and I really think that that's an ingenious connotation for her to give to death, that death is this stalking ravenous predator which you don't find very often, or anywhere else. We often try to intellectualize death, or we try to familiarize death in ways. "Death and taxes." everybody's gotta go. But, this connotation of death being this prowling predator I find very unique. She didn't really go too far with it, but on the other hand, it's very shocking in the beginning.

Greg D. The Cat is a predator, to the mouse, but for me, because of the smallness of the scale, I don't feel a huge ravenous death. It's the little things. Regard these small incidences down here, and give those changes and deaths a place in the scheme of things too, not just the big ones. For me, if she wanted to have a more ferocious

 predator, she should have gone in the direction of a tiger, or some larger mamal - a larger predator.

Victoria. You know that prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." It has that feeling for me. Will there be a nice snug little room for me in heaven. Will I have a snug cupboard where I can nibble away and be safe while the rest of heaven is whirling around. It's like it's not a big scary death thing; this is a little prayer from this place of humility - I think you used that word?

Lois. Well, there's an appeal for humility on the part of Papa, I think here.

Greg M. "Papa" itself gives it a childlike quality, doesn't it? rather than "Father."

Greg D. It's very domestic, isn't it? Mansion is just another name for a big house - and cupboards, and "nibble," rather than devouring something. Yeah, it's all quiet and small.

Jan. Thinking about this with other things by RD, she has this eye for the small - the birds, the humbleness. And it's very playful. Look out for the small critters, that they also have a place in heaven.

Lois. Alright, keeping with this theme of miniaturization, let's go on to little boat.  I find it very interesting that the last word in this poem - the benediction of this poem - is "lost." It's very in keeping with Not found in the first poem.

Adrianna reads.
'Twas such a little — little boat
That toddled down the bay!
'Twas such a gallant — gallant sea
That beckoned it away!

'Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast —
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost
                             -J107/Fr152/M91

It's not a boat capable of navigation, but rather a toy. Well, it does go down the bay, so I guess it could be, but, a strange mixture of miniaturization long with high seas in this one.

Greg D. If we're reading the fascicles as somehow linked, and we were talking about miniaturization in the previous poem, and the final lines - unsuspecting Cycles - huge time events - anything would be little compared to them - if we're willing to look at reading one poem right into another, which is what some of the fascicle scholars are trying to do - I've not quite figured out how to do that ... several personification words in here, as well - gallant and greedy.

Jan. It's a little bit like a metaphor for life, hm? You're setting out, then you're enticed by the great sea, then comes death - boom. But, all the time, these grammar things, Nor ever guessed the stately sails/ My little craft was lost? Would you have to put in a "with" there, or "of?" How is that linked - My little caft having stately sails?

Greg M. Yeah, it sounds like she's setting you up to expect some escape, by the boat, because the Coast never guessed that the sails were so stately, right? You're thinking at the end of that line that the boat is going to overcome the gallant sea.

Jan. Or is it that it's such a lofty, promising thing - my little boat with its stately sails promises, going out - but it's boom, it's going to be swallowed up.

Lois. Right, just when you think the stately sails are going to be enough to get it through, My little craft was lost.

Victoria. And you never guessed that that would happen.

Lois. And, we all so quickly recognize the tropes of the boat and the sea, the coast and the waves, and Dickinson uses them just like everyone else does, but in a way that does not result in a fixed answer about the result, or about death, if you will. She loves to imply confusion just when you are expecting something to firm up. (laugh)

Greg M. Could it be possible that the stately sails are not the sails of this little boat? I can't see the stately sails on this little little boat. That's the other boats in the harbor that never guess. Then, grammatically, then you can say, "Nor did the stately sails ever guess that my little craft was lost."

Lois. Yeah, that's good.

Mary. Oh, like, stately sails is another boat.

Greg M. Yeah, there are all these clippers in the harborm and she's got this little teeny boat toddling down the bay. Grammatically, that works.

Greg D. It seems to me that then Emily would have capitalized stattely, or underlined it or something, if that's really what she intended.

Lois. Oh, she loves to hide and make us hunt (laugh)

Greg D. Well, therefore we can't read it that way. [inaudible]

Victoria. So, the other boats are sailing stately alongm and they have no idea that she is gone. Or, they don't pay attention to the little people.

Greg M. Well, chewing on the grammatical parsing, syntactical aspect of it, it came up. It fits, that way.

Mary. All the time, we're flowing along doing fine, something's happening to somebody else. That's the way it is, for all of us.

Lois. Yeah, as opposed to the overpowering cat, the sea is just gallant. The sea is just going about being the sea.

Greg D. Yeah, it's not a stormy, Turner kind of sea ... except that there's a greedy wave.

Lois. I think that word toddle - that just fries me (laughs) I don't know why she had to use that word. I mean, boats don't toddle, they bob. It doesn 't bring to mind a boat, it brings to mind a toddler.

Victoria. She needed an extra syllable.

Mary. It brings to mind a kid, right?

Lois. As far as I know. Well, in so far as our habit of going into more sophisticated poems on the same subject, let's look at Of Death. I think that in all of her death meditations. In this poem, she works against orthodoxy, calling on private memories and linking tropes in ways that don't result in a fixed position, which I was picking up on in that earlier poem. But, it's more developed in this poem and it's just flat-out exquisite. She doesn't buy into the certaintly of an afterlife, she doesn't buy into the certainty of "dead as a rock." This poem is beautiful in illustrating that.

Of Death I try to think like this —

The Well in which they lay us

Is but the Likeness of the Brook

That menaced not to slay us,

But to invite by that Dismay

Which is the Zest of sweetness

To the same Flower Hesperian,

Decoying but to greet us —

I do remember when a Child

With bolder Playmates straying

To where a Brook that seemed a Sea

Withheld us by its roaring

From just the Purple Flower beyond

Until constrained to clutch it

If Doom itself were the result,

The boldest leaped, and clutched it —
                                     - J1558/Fr1588/M640

We don't know if the child landed, or fell in the river. We don't know if the child got the flower and kept going ...

Greg D. Clutched it,

Lois. Mmhm. But, we have no final conclusion, other than the fact that one child was The boldest, then took off. But again, the water is used in her images of death beginning with the well, which is the grave, and flows into the Brook, which flows into the sea. We don't know if Doom itself were the result. So, if you'd like to think of this as a later treatment on her choice in this early poem of water and death, where the little boat starts out in the bay, I think it's so satisfying. Of Death I try to think like this. ... She's not saying, "I've decided this about death." She could be saying, "Well, of death, as I'm washing the dishes, I try to think like this." It's not even conlusive in the first line.  I try to think. It's a kind of preparation, and that again is so different in her early poems, where we see her shifting gears, and of course she still does, but in the later poem she gives us already the hint that this is not going to be conclusive: I try to think.

Victoria. In the second stanza of this poem, she takes us to a child's place in her memory, which I think connects to the child-like poems that we've been discussing. It's not cutesy at all, but it's still a little child, playing down by the water. She's using alot of the same images, but they're much more mature. You can maybe imagine her seeing herself as still a child in the context of this larger life and world. You still feel like, even though you're seventy years old, you still feel like a kid sometimes, because life is so much bigger than your little life - and death - and all the questions that lie between. I love that last stanza. I can picture her down at Fearing Brook, looking for the cardinal flower that grows in there.

Lois. There remains in her poetry this linking of imagery that she's already devoted to in her early poems of childhood experience. Any other thoughts on these poems?

[ A discussion of Hesperides in Greek mythology ensues ]

Greg D. There's such a disparity between such a little boat and Of Death I try to think like this. Of Death is speculative and inconclusive whereas such a little boat is just a description of something.

Lois. Yeah, there's no comparison, in the construction of these poems. I simply point out the similarity in the tropes between the bay and the Sea - the water imagery. Alright, what do you make of Sown in dishonor?

Mary reads.
"Sown in dishonor"!

Ah! Indeed!

May this "dishonor" be?

If I were half so fine myself

I'd notice nobody!

"Sown in corruption"!

Not so fast!

Apostle is askew!

Corinthians 1. 15. narrates

A Circumstance or two
                       - J62/Fr153/M91

It's like she's arguing.

Greg M. First Corinthians Chapter 15 is where Paul writes to the church at Corinth, and distiguishes the physical body from the spiritual body. The physical body is sown in dishonor but it's raised in glory.

Mary. So, the Apostke is Paul? She's arguing with him?

Greg D. A metonym for Paul.

Victoria. Not so fast, Paul! [laughter]

Greg M. Well, gee, what is sown in the dirt and then rises again that she could be talking about?

Victoria. Oh! A flower.

Greg M. Yeah.

Victoria. If I were half so fine myself - as a tulip! I wouldn't notice anybody!

Mary. It sounds like a little dig at Paul for all his sanctimony.

Lois. Don't you think this little poem is kind of standing by itself in this sheet? Or, is it just my imagination?

Greg M. Well, there's the theme of death and the resurrection; it's still there.

Lois. Where's the death in this poem?

Greg M. Sown in dishonor. That's the physical body being mortal.

Greg D. Sown in dishonor in the sense of Adam and Eve and original sin, I guess.

Jan. I think this refers to the whole of earthly existance, maybe. Because, she's always finding,in her struggling with organized religion - "I see so much beauty around here - this side - it's so wonderful." That's what she always celebrates, right? "I'm gathering Paradise, right here."

Lois. We have time for one more.

Victoria reads.
If pain for peace prepares

Lo, what "Augustan" years

Our feet await!

If springs from winter rise,

Can the Anemones

Be reckoned up?

If night stands fast — then noon

To gird us for the sun,

What gaze!

When from a thousand skies

On our developed eyes

Noons blaze!
                      -J63/Fr155/M91

Greg. There's a copy of this poem, written in pencil and sent to Sue, where she has a dash afer What gaze. I think it makes it a little easier to read that way.

Mary. What's "Augustan" years?

Greg M. That refers to the Pax Romana - 2 centuries of peace from the reign of Augustus Ceasar. So, if pain prepares you for peace, Oh boy, are we in for a good time. [laughter] I've had a lot of pain - something good must be coming up. I remember a woman in my old neighborhood saying "Huh! If you grew through pain I'd be as big as that barn out there."