Emily Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter May, 2018

Emily Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter

May, 2018

Topic: Fascicle 8, Sheet

Facilitated by Lois Kackley

Lois. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think this is the first fascicle that we've come to where every poem is familiar. We've read some familiar poems so far, but the majority of the poems have not been that familiar. We've enjoyed contemplating the possibility that she begins a certain emphasis that she later returns to with more sophistication later on, but this is the first real highly regarded poems that we've come to in the fascicles. Well, The Sun keeps stooping is popular primarily, I think, for its lyricism. We only have three poems today.

Victoria. I'm going to dispute what you said, though (laughs) because in sheet 3, These are the Days when Birds come back­ - That's a big one. Lots of people love that one. But, I understand what you're saying.

Lois. Well, I'm glad you pointed that out, because I knew that there had been some that we weren't totally new to. It also emphasizes in this poem, one of the things that we've come to connect with Dickinson, in terms of her unexpected images. To take an image that makes you cry, and uses it in a way that you don't expect. Can anybody say that better than me. [laughter] Let's read the poem.

Greg reads.

A wounded Deer - leaps highest -

I've heard the Hunter tell -

'Tis but the extasy of death -

And then the Brake is still!

The smitten Rock that gushes!

The trampled Steel that springs!

A Cheek is always redder

Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the mail of Anguish -

In which it cautious Arm,

Lest Anybody spy the blood

And "you're hurt" exclaim!
                        - J165/Fr181/M94

[See also "Emily Dickinson as a Second Language: Demystifying the Poetry," by Greg Mattingly, p 133 ]

Mary. Mail meaning?

Greg. Chain Mail.

Lois. Well, first of all she starts out with image that is rather intuitive, but at the same time, we don't expect someone to put it into words. We just don't. It's almost like she's breaking a taboo when she uses concepts like the ecstasy of death, to match up what would be to many people the horrible scene of a deer. And since she attributes it to what would be a gunshot wound, it's almost even worse, isn't it? So the question is, why? What is she after? It certainly jostles our brain, so what does she want to put there, once she accomplishes that? But, before we get off on that, does anybody have a problem with the assumption that a wounded deer leaps highest.

Jan. She says that's what they say. It's not a fact. I've heard the Hunter tell, so, it's not the same. There's a poem where she has a person who dies, and is in pain, doesn't lie. That is real.

Greg. "I like a look of Agony."

Jan. Exactly.

Lois. And this is a good poem to connect with that because of that unexpected combination.

Jan. For her, Oh, this is something real. For her, the closeness of death, or the smitten rock, where we are beaten by whatever - that's where things happen. And I seem to remember that this Hectic is a sign of tuberculosis. Oh, that's in your book, Greg. That's where I found it. Then at the end, Mirth is the mail of Anguish - we hide all these moments, the moment of death, the moment of illness, and darkness. That's where she goes; she's a truth-seeker, so she goes there. And then she bundles them together in this unpredictable way. The last stanza is like, we always hide, we put on  coat of mail. We the smile, but underneath is the anguish.

Melba. My question is whether the mail goes on pro-actively, to prevent the injury or whether it goes on after in order to obscure the blood.

Lois. It seems to me that she's putting that on the same plane as a wounded deer leaping highest. A deer leaps high, a human puts on mirth. The mirth is the leaping. Clearly by the third stanza she's talking about humans rather than animals, so, she's drawing the parallel.

Victoria. The mirth is a response to the wound.

Lois. Yes.

Melba. I'm leaning toward that, but I can also read it as mirth is the armor that she puts on in order to prevent the injury - but that also cuts off the ecstasy; she has this choice of being exposed to the rock; it would gush, if hit - or being trampled and having to spring back. But, if she's got this mail on, none of that can happen. So, it could also be a weighing of what's lost, by wearing the armor. By wearing the armor of mirth she loses that leap - she loses that gushing forth, the responsive spring, because she doesn't want those responses to be observed. She doesn't want people to say, "Oh, you're hurt!"

Lois. Right. It definitely takes a turn at the end. When she uses a deer as a metaphor for human pain, there's no self-consciousness in the first stanza, nor in the second stanza. But, when you say this person is putting on an act to keep from being embarrassed by someone saying "You're hurt!" that's a totally new realm of experience.

Greg. Syntactically, it seems to me that the anguish is wearing the mail. Therefore, it must already exist.

Mary. What is the "it" - in which it cautious arm?

Several. The Anguish.

Victoria. I was wondering about that word extasy, and the whole tone of these poems seems hysterical to me - that transporting definition of ecstasy that she uses in some poems. In this one, it seems like there could be another definition. She's using ecstasy and defining it more as a state of hysteria.

Greg. Doesn't ecstasy derive originally from ex stasis - outside oneself - removal to elsewhere? That's the roots of it.

Lois. An out-of-body experience. It's also irrational. Because, if you're dying, that's part of the shock value of that word in this poem.

Victoria. Yeah, that's why the word "hysterical" ...

Lois. Its irrational. Some people probably do experience that; I'm not sure it's universal - the idea of irrational exuberance at the point of death.

Larry. I'm thinking of the last scene of the movie, Dr. Strangelove. He's riding the missile at the end, and he's waving his hat around...This is the most exciting moment he's ever going to have. [laughter] Lots of people say, I want to die doing something exciting, not just deteriorating in a corner.

Greg. I heard that Steve Jobs' last words, as he was expiring, were "Oh Wow!" And, I know a woman who died; I wasn't there, but those who were said that she was in an ecstatic frame of mind - just blissful.

Judith. And you hear stories about people seeing people on the other side. Look at little Gib. "Open the door! Open the door!"

Jan. Who's Gib?

Several. Her little nephew.

Jan. Is that in a letter somewhere?

Greg. " 'Open the Door, open the Door, they are waiting for me,' was Gilbert's sweet command in delirium. Who are waiting for him, all we possess we would give to know."

Jan. So, what's the question now?

Greg. Who remembers? [laughter]

Lois. Well, to me the question is, does this resonate? She says in the first line, The wounded Deer leaps highest. She doesn't say "the dying."

Mary. Yeah, nobody' dying here, but they're pretty hurt.

Lois. I wonder - isn't that somewhat of a psychological principal? - that sometime after a shock, when people are in great pain, they'll do things that a month later you'd say, "I don't know how I did that."

Victoria. People can show very great strength under dire circumstances - lift objects or move things in ways that they wouldn't normally be able to.

Lois. To me, even more than the death image, that is the magic of this poem.

Victoria. Cristanne has a note on this poem. Biblical reference: Numbers 20:11. "And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also." So that might be an example of super-human strength through his faithfulness to God, or whatever powerallowed him to crack this rock open and release the water in a spring in the desert.

Lois. M-hm. That is an amazing reference.

Jan. So, she homes in on these places where an extreme awareness comes about. This smitten, that's where it's starting to gush water, and that's where rapturous things start to happen, and that's linked with A wounded Deer ... that must refer to when an animal walks into a trap, right? The trampled Steel that springs! Those are huge change moments, where death can follow, or, in one case, life follows, because water comes out. That's typical Emily Dickinson - a death moment and a life moment, but death from the other side, to wake up in the spiritual world is [dying?] ... She sees something in the highly painful moments -  smitten -, bang! snap! wounded. For those moments there's something real. There's a poem where she says the soul is most aware of it's immortality when there's a lightening - a click - a flash. It seems like, when a sudden shock happens, then, you wake up to, well in that one, your immortality - and, it's like she's always looking for that.

Melba. I've read that there's a stage in the progression of tuberculosis where the blood vessels in the cheeks dilate, and the person looks incredilbly healthy. There's an incredible bloom that they experience before they fall into the final stages. That's the Hectic Your thoughts give a whole new spin to this Mail, though, because, if she's putting on this Mirth, she's actually hiding this experience that she's treasuring. She doesn't want people to undervalue it by saying "You're hurt!" She wants people either to not recognize it, or to recognize it as this moment of ecstasy and transformation.

Jan. I have a feeling that this is the human condition. What I see here, in these moments of a wounded deer, all of a sudden I see through what is hugely covered up by Mirth.

Lois. It is an instinctive reaction, isn't it? - to cover up? [general agreement]

Robert. For me, the poem resonates with the Yankee attitude. This is the ways the Yankees dealt with it - they laughed about pain. There's a sense of embarrassment with the revelation of hurt.

Lois. Kind of a stiff upper lip attitude. My mother would say, "Keep your chin up." [laughter]

Greg. With what this community was like at that time, there was probably alot of that - not expressing things deeply felt.

....

Melba reads.
The Sun kept stooping — stooping — low!
The Hills to meet him rose!
On his side, what Transaction!
On their side, what Repose!

Deeper and deeper grew the stain
Upon the window pane —
Thicker and thicker stood the feet
Until the Tyrian

Was crowded dense with Armies —
So gay, so Brigadier —
That I felt martial stirrings
Who once the Cockade wore —

Charged from my chimney corner —
But Nobody was there!
                        -J152/Fr182/M94

Lois. So, what is this? It starts out kind of grandiose, doesn't it? Is she making fun of herself?

Jan. You mean the last two lines?

Lois. Well, the last two lines in the context of the way the poem starts. It reminds me of the aurora borealis poem ["Of Bronze and Blaze the North tonight"] - "I strutted on my stem." Here too, the response to the natural elements is what creates this joke.

Victoria. You're just so trivial compared to this phenomenon of the aurora, or, you can strut around with your cockade hat on like you're sumpthin' else, but, look at the sunset.

Lois. It looks like she's laughing at herself for writing in such a way that attempts to capture this extraordinary natural occasion. For Dickinson, strutting would be rightm [inaudible] right? So what do you say, shall we look at that poem and see if she's trying to follow through in that one what she started here?

Lois reads.
Of Bronze — and Blaze —

The North — Tonight —

So adequate — it forms —

So preconcerted with itself —

So distant — to alarms —

An Unconcern so sovereign

To Universe, or me —

Infects my simple spirit

With Taints of Majesty —

Till I take vaster attitudes —

And strut upon my stem —

Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,

For Arrogance of them —

My Splendors, are Menagerie —

But their Competeless Show

Will entertain the Centuries

When I, am long ago,

An Island in dishonored Grass —

Whom none but Beetles — know.

                                    - J290/Fr319/M152

[ To hear this poem read aloud, go to https://youtu.be/OCTe2r-D3Sw ]

So, the beautiful sky, whether it's the aurora borealis or just a beautiful sunset - we've all seen sunsets that took our breath away, aside from that phenomenon in the sky. I don't think we'd be amiss to conclude that she's drawing some humor from the effort on he part of humans to describe or recognize this natural phenomenon, just because it's a contrast in majesties - whatever.

Victoria. The word "hubris" comes to mind, for me. The portrayal of the human, as they act out their little life in each of these poems.

Jan. Can anyone explain this Tyrian?

Melba. It connotes a dark blue-purple. Tyrian purple - the purple dye that came from Tyre. Similiar to indigo.

Jan. Can anyone explain this Cockade?

Judith. A circular or oval-shaped bunch of ribbons, usually worn on a hat.

Greg. She has the feeling the stirrings - of someone like a soldier.

Victoria. Cristanne says that "Cockades were worn by soldiers in the Continental Army during the American revolution. They have also been worn by the British, the French, and people of other nations, to show allegiance to a particular political faction.

Judith. So what do you think, that she wore a cockade, that she was more expressive? More belligerent, more aggressive than she is now?

Victoria. Yeah, that same arrogance that she's depicting with strutting around on her stem.

Lois. I think you're all right, about her laughing at herself, but there's also this fascination with the tie between elements of nature and human nature. When the sun sets, it does something to us. When the sun rises, it generates a response. I some ways, she's expressing a very persistent interest in the tie between ourselves and the world we live in. Part of the fun, I think, in putting these words together, and connecting them with images like brigadier and martial stirrings, is to emphasizee that we just can't experience nature, if we have any sensitivity at all, without being affected by it. And then, to take that a step further and attempt to create metaphors that reinforce and help to share that experience - that is a lot of what is going on. She's sharing this experience of the sunset when she sends it to Susan. I think that's the poignancy of the feeling - of being made to feel more alive - when occurences in nature make their move......

.......

Victoria reads.
I met a King this afternoon!

He had not on a Crown indeed,

A little Palmleaf Hat was all,

And he was barefoot, I'm afraid!

But sure I am he Ermine wore

Beneath his faded Jacket's blue —

And sure I am, the crest he bore

Within that Jacket's pocket too!

For 'twas too stately for an Earl —

A Marquis would not go so grand!

'Twas possibly a Czar petite —

A Pope, or something of that kind!

If I must tell you, of a Horse

My freckled Monarch held the rein —

Doubtless an estimable Beast,

But not at all disposed to run!

And such a wagon! While I live

Dare I presume to see

Another such a vehicle

As then transported me!

Two other ragged Princes

His royal state partook!

Doubtless the first excursion

These sovereigns ever took!

I question if the Royal Coach

Round which the Footmen wait

Has the significance, on high,

Of this Barefoot Estate!
                                    -J166/Fr183/M95

Lois. Anyone want to venture who she's talking about?

Judith. I wish I knew my birds better, so I could be more specific.

Greg. It's a crested bird.

Polly. A titmouse? A jay?

Melba. I was thinking blue jay - the Jacket's blue.

Lois. Well, it sure is playful and fun. Something like the experience of a child. ... She's admiring the way the creature carries itself, isnt' she? So, the emotions that are stimulated, of the poet, will it enlarge?

Larry. There are kinds of jays, too.

Victoria. We have only blue jays here.

Mary. Do we know it's a bird. I thought it was a little boy. Where's the clue that it's a bird?

Greg. I thought it was a little boy, too, but when I say the crest I had to think twice.

Polly. He bore the crest within his Jacket's pocket?

[ crosstalk about birds ]

Victoria. Cristanne writes that L M Hills ran a palm leaf hat factory in Amherst, and that he hired almost entirely amherst residence. This could have been a fellow coming home from the factory, wearing one of those palm leaf hats.

Jan. What about this barefoot?

Greg. She writes in a letter or two, "My barefoot rank is better." Barefootedness seems to be, at least in those cases, a way of expressing humbleness - nothing fancy here - I'm no duchess, I'm just a daisy - my barefoot rank is better. She may be wanting to lend this creature that aspect, by pointing out that it's barefoot, like a peasant. That's how I took it. She contrasts it with the Royal Coach, too, so it's the opposite of that.

Lois. So, do we think that this poem is talking about only one bird, or, whatever?

Robert. I thought, maybe, some humble fellow coming up the dirt road in front of her house in a wagon, and she's, while in some way mocking him, also glorifying him.

Mary. Yeah, I agree with that, because it's human. I thought it was a boy, bur yeah, a man. And he's poor.

Lois. In a sense, her poetic self would have admired that.

Adreanna. And the blue jacket that he wore was faded, but the crest he wore within - so, it's something that she can't see - but there''s a crest anyway.

Jan. And how does she come to say And such a wagon! While I live/ Dare I presume to see/ Another such a vehicle/ As then transported me? She's taken off by something that she sees.

Mary. I don't think physically, though.

Lois. That ties into our previous poem, where the emotionl response creates a -

Jan. light of fancy"

Mary. It could be that, too ...

Lois. Yeah. And I'm not sure that even the horse and wagon aren't metaphorical, in an attempt to create an imagery of the root of this bird - if it is a bird - an imaginary horse. But, at the same time, she wanted to create an image of a bird guiding it's "horses" in it's courses through the air.

Burleigh. Thinking about what the circus was like in Emily's time, I wonder if it could be a circus train going by.

Greg. Or a kid on a hobby horse.

Melba. I'm just playing with the idea that not at all disposed to run is to fly.

Jan. Jeepers! [laughter]

Melba. Emily! [laughter]