Emily Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter January, 2020

Emily Dickinson International Society, Amherst Chapter

January, 2020

Topic: Anger in Dickinson's Poetry

Facilitated by Judith Hudson

Judith. I was struck with this topic when I read Charyn - A loaded gun [A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century, by Jerome Charyn ], because he certainly does explore the topic a lot. And, we may not agree with a lot of what he says, or on what we find in the poetry. So let's start with the first poem.

Melba reads.
For each extatic instant           [Dickinson's spelling of "ecstatic."]

We must an anguish pay

In keen and quivering ratio

To the exstasy -                       [Dickinson's spelling of "ecstasy."]

 

For each beloved hour

Sharp pittances of Years -

Bitter contested farthings -

And Coffers heaped with Tears!
                                    - J125/Fr109/M77

Greg M. This is the poem that the movie, "A Quiet Passion," started with. Set the tone. [laughter]

Jill. Did they have it printed across the screen?

Greg M. No, it was recited by Cynthia Nixon, standing at a window.

Judith. So, what do people make of this?

Jill. It has to be one of the more straightforward poems, in my opinion. I don't have to question at all what she's trying to say.

Greg D. She sounds old here, but she's only 29 or so. It sounds like somebody looking back on a long and difficult life, or something like that.

Greg M. My wife is a trusts and estates attorney, and she recognizes this very well. This is what happens in probate, very often. And she [Dickinson] came from a family of lawyers. There's some legalese in here .

Jill. As the farthings are contested in a will?

Greg M. Yes, exactly.

Judith. What's the balance? Is there a balance?

Jill. There's an account sheet. One hour on this side, of plusses, equals years on the other side, of debits

Greg M. It really sounds like a deep and abiding resentment about life in general.

Polly. Also it could be observation; all the people around her are complaining. That's the way some people tend to be. Probably a majority of the population then - the religion - Calvinism.

Victoria. If we're not looking at it biographically, but as it resonates with me, I just don't look at life like that. It would diminish the joy - the happiness in my life - to think, "Oh, I can't let myself be too happy about this occasion, because, somebody's going to die. A friend is going to die, even though there's a new baby in the family. I just don't look at life that way. Maybe it's because of my life, my privilege, my individual circumstances and being really, really lucky. When bad things happen to me, they weren't really so bad. Other people have had different experiences where the balance is really not equal.

Greg M. Do you think you might react this way for a short time if something hit you really hard? Maybe it's momentary reaction rather than a philosophical position.

Victoria. That's a good question.

Polly. Also, it could be an observation - people in her life - sarcasm, maybe. Irony. Lampooning. Human nature does seem to go to the negative. You have to fight it.

Victoria. I don't know if I agree with that - in terms of human nature.

Melba. Oh, I just want to be you. [ laughter ] I'm having a moment of longing. [laughter]

Lois. Say more Melba!

Melba. No, just to open up that possibility. Time assuages the loss, and creates balance.

Jan. It isn't a balance sheet about life in general. She's talking about ecstasy, and that is a rare thing. She wants to take wing and she turns into a butterfly.

[ interlude ]

Polly. My sense is that Emily Dickinson would be peculiarly prone to really strong passions, so that, when she was really loving some one, she wanted so much back that, when she didn't get it, she was just plunged into the depths. I think she rode those highs and lows more strongly than most people do. So to me, this sounds very Dickinson - if you follow her life and letters.

Greg M. But that would be temporary.

Polly. It would be - but just the idea that her joys could be met with equal anguish.

Melba. But I think there's a fallacy that could take place, especially for a young person, where the loss is so acute, and it seems permanent, and it goes on. The ratio of the loss to the original [inaudible] is continually increasing, and in retrospect it's defining the original ecstatic moment as more and more valuable because the pain keeps increasing. And, I think at some point, there's some form of maturity that let's you see that, well, I took this road and all these other good things have come from it, and so your balance sheet begins to be restored. I'm being a little abstract, but I'm wondering if this keen and quivering ratio is just riding those waves of grief, and it constantly increases the value of what was lost.

Victoria. I wonder where the Puritanism in her background comes into this. There are sermons and passages in the Bible that discourage that state of ecstasy. It's more the heaven and hell paradigm?

Polly. I take a different tack with this, because, she was a reader of Emerson, and one of Emerson's famous essays is "Compensation," and I think she could have been thinking about that at the same time she was thinking about her own anguish or whatever it was [inaudible] So, to me, I think it might be more philosophical than based in Calvinism.

Victoria. Well, I don't know. Did Calvinism even talk about ecstasy? - as compared to the Catholic church, say? [ crosstalk ]

Greg M. Here's something that might respond a bit to Melba's point, an early poem:
As by the dead we love to sit,

Become so wondrous dear --

As for the lost we grapple

Tho' all the rest are here --

 

In broken mathematics

We estimate our prize

Vast -- in its fading ratio

To our penurious eyes!
                        - J88/Fr78/M56

It's kind of what you were saying, isn't it?

Several. Yeah.

Melba. A similar time, too.

Greg M. It even has that word ratio in it.

Melba. Victoria, you were asking about the Puritan sensibility, and I thought about "Sinners in the hands of an angry God, where there's this terrible threat that you're like a spider being dangled above a flame by a thin strand of silk, My first thought was that this is horrible, but the point was for the reader, "and you're suspended." God, by his power, is holding you out of this torment, even though it's this ever-present threat. That's what your comment triggered for me.

Victoria. I was just trying to see how dampened down things were, by the church.

Melba. In terms of behavior, I think they were. But, you were involved in this life-long drama, fighting a battle for your own soul. This is from Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the hands of an angry God." He's been going on for a while, and he's really worked himself up, and he says, "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked. His wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire."

Jan. Wow.

Melba. Do I have your attention?

Margaret. You have to think of the context in which Jonathan Edwards was giving that sermon. He's trying to get people to the point of conversion. But once you're converted, you move into another domain, and I think we have a very false view of Calvinism and Protestantism if we overlook the other side.

Greg M. You're reminding me of what she wrote to Abiah about Abby Wood's transformation - serene, and calm - transformed.

Polly. And she claimed that she wished for that, but couldn't achieve it.

Melba. And, this sermon was not characteristic of Edwards - he was trying out a different form, but I think it does capture the uncertainty in the heart of Calvinism, in that "the elect" is a fixed number, and you are never entirely certain that you belong to it. You come under the conviction that you belong to it, but you're never certain.

Judith. Well, let's move from ecstasy to volcanoes. Would anyone like to read 1743?

Greg D. reads.
On my volcano grows the Grass

A meditative spot –

An acre for a Bird to choose

Would be the general thought –

How red the Fire rocks below

How insecure the sod

Did I disclose

Would populate with awe my solitude
                                    - Fr1743, J1677

Jan. Someone said that Mozart's music is like a beautiful vineyard, but it's planted on a volcano.

Jill. That's true, what you say, but it's more dangerous for women to express their anger than for men, I'm here to testify. What I like about that last couplet is that it seems like she could disclose it to others or even to herself, and either option would be awesome, in the Romantic sense, because, if you even admit to yourself how angry you are, it can be awesome. And, it certainly would be to your friends.

Greg D. I'm just going to jump in here and say, I don't see a lot of these emotions as necessarily being angry ones.

Jill. You mean the volcano one? Oh! I didn't even think that it could be, like, passion.

Greg D. Yeah, it could be passion or strong emotion that has the same intensity as anger, or rage or what ever, but I don't know that I definitely get that that's what's going on here, but some strong emotion kept solitary and unspoken inside that she's aware of.

Greg M. Volcano, to me, suggests at least potential destruction.

Jill. Yes! And where does that come from except violence and anger? - Unless she's afraid of her lust. That could be her volcano, her lust.

Mary. I don't know - the first time I read this, I felt like she was describing all of humanity, particularly after the news last night about killing the general. [ The January 3 assassination of Qasem Soleimani ] That was my first reading - like here, our little bubble in Amherst.

Greg M. As far as volcanoes, they're not only destructive, they're constructive. They're creative - and she knew this from Edward Hitchcock. It's that magma that comes out and creates new islands and so forth.

Burleigh. That's what I'm thinking, because a lot of times, before you actually become engaged in writhing something, there is a lot churning up that's on fire inside of you. It doesn't have to be destruction, it's release.

Jill. It's like it's just this lady of society's daily round, and it's just so meaningless to her. .. She may have been very aware of repression before it was a named thing. It will be 20 years later before it's identified by Freud.

Melba. I find that quite plausible. I suppose, if we wanted to move away from the idea that this is exclusively anger, she contrasts the volcano to general thought, and to meditation. Meditation I take to be looking backward - remembering the past - reconsidering and reflecting on. And, the volcano's very active. I wonder if for Dickinson, the sense of her self thinking was volatile.

Victoria. I went to the garden with this poem, and it's different from what everybody else has said. When I think of her as a gardener, the image that came to me - and I played around with a painting a few years ago with this as a hyacinth bulb. The garden is a meditative spot, and if you know what hyacinth bulbs look like, they can have a kind of purplish red skin on them. She said she was "a lunatic about bulbs." So, the force and the power in this little onion-looking kind of thing, underneath the ground and the grass in her garden it forces it's way up, and the awe of the hyacinth flower, and the fragrance of it, in her hyperbolic way could be very unsettling. It could disturb her solitude when she's passing by - the fragrance of the flower wafting -

Greg. I want to be her, too. [laughter]

Melba. I went to such a dark place. [laughter] I saw this meadow with a bird, and the volcano erupting, and goodbye bird. [laughter] You know, the anger is dangerous. It'll drive off even the bird that ventures to sit down on this acre.

Judith. I guess what impresses me is how things are not what they seem. [general agreement] - that underneath, what appears to be a quiet spot, underneath there's all this energy, whether it's  anger, or creativity, or whatever. And, I don't think women wrote about anger, or were allowed to express anger. So, she had to keep it under wraps. Did I disclose. She doesn't say "I want to disclose," or, "would I disclose." She doesn't disclose.

Burleigh. Does she refer to her solitude in other places?

Jan. Yes, she does - The Soul unto itself.

[The Soul unto itself

Is an imperial friend —

Or the most agonizing Spy —

An Enemy — could send —

Secure against its own —

No treason it can fear —

Itself — its Sovereign — of itself

The Soul should stand in Awe]

                                 - J683/Fr579/M264

Polly. It reminds me a lot of They shut me up in Prose. If they could have seen what was going on inside.

[They shut me up in Prose—

As when a little Girl

They put me in the Closet—

Because they liked me "still"—

Still! Could themself have peeped—

And seen my Brain—go round—

They might as wise have lodged a Bird

For Treason—in the Pound—

Himself has but to will

And easy as a Star

Abolish his Captivity—

And laugh—No more have I—

                     - J613/Fr445/M223]

Melba. I do get the impression that, even if this current is just intellect - you know - moving - there's a sense that to let it out would be incalculably destructive.

Polly. Or that she might be destroyed by it!

Melba. That's a good point.

Judith. Well, let's go to the Mob.

Jan reads.
The mob within the heart

Police cannot suppress

The riot given at the first

Is authorized as peace

Uncertified of scene

Or signified of sound

But growing like a hurricane

In a congenial ground.

                     - J1745/Fr1763/M683

Greg M. There we are again. [general agreement] I was interested in the word mob. She's only used it in a couple of other poems, and then there's the line that she wrote to Colonel Higginson, "My dying Tutor told me that he would like to live till I had been a poet, but Death was much of Mob as I could master-then." It's a funny word to use. I looked up every place that she used it, and I've come to wonder if maybe this mob is more like being mobbed, by your own feelings. The online ED lexicon has, "figuratively" as "passion, mania, surge of feelings, rush of emotion, chaos." It finally made a little more sense to me, when I read the word that way. I don't know if you've ever been in a mob before, but I have; It's a panicky feeling. So that's what I got out of it.

Margaret. How do any of you read the third line? It sticks out for me like a sore thumb.

Greg M. [attempting to sing] "Who can start a riot in Viet Nam?/ Who can have the troops restore the calm?" That's "CIA Man" by the fugs. So you have a riot at first, then call the aftermath peace.

Burleigh. Both these poems, to me, seem like they're stating a contrast between what's on the outside and what's on the inside. [general agreement]

Jill. Back to Margaret's question, I can't figure out the third line and the fourth line - it's so contradictory.

Greg D. I think she's saying that what's going on inside her is much more intense than what we normally would say is difficult or chaotic on the outside. The riot given at the first/ Is authorized as peace compared to The mob within the heart. You can sort of read it it backwards.

Judith. Or, The mob within the heart, once it's first experienced, shifts. She feels out of control at the first, then it becomes channeled into something that you can control.

Jill. And yet, it's growing in stanza 2.

Jan. Right.

Jill. It feels like maybe the reverse, Judith? Let's say she's thinking about something that really hurt her [inaudible] so it's peaceful and logical as she has learned to be. And then it sinks down into her heart, and it gets more unruly until, in stanza 2, it continues to grow like a hurricane. I'm studying the love poems now, and this poem was mentioned - for the word Uncertified, especially, in the sense that, in stanza 2, she can't locate it in space, and she can't pin it down, So, it's not at a certain scene - like let's say a scene is one of her memories that makes her upset, or she can't signify it through words. Signifying is a way of saying giving meaning through speech. So, stanza 2 may be more unruly than stanza 1 is. It's growing, and she leaves it open at the end, just like you mentioned in the previous poem; she didn't solve anything.

Judith. She's growing in a congenial ground.

Polly. Yeah, I just love congenial ground. It's so feminine. It's called Minnesota Nights where I come from. [laughter]

Jill. Her heart is a congenial ground for making this chaos. That's how I thought of it.

Judith. What was your take on that line, Margaret? - The riot given at the first?

Margaret. I'm not sure. The thing that bothers me is the given. Who gave? What gave?

Jan. I'm going in that direction too. This is what we're born with. If you actually become aware of it, you see that it's [involved?] Almost on a physiological level you could say, it seems so peaceful, but there's a huge amount going on there. It's almost like an exploration of what a horrible amount of red [inaudible] there actually is. You're never aware of it, but when you look at it, it's just a marvel, what's going on there.

Victoria. The riot given at the first is what you're born with as human beings. You're born with that passion, that -

Jan. - It's a physical -

Victoria.  - Yeah.

Burleigh. That's interesting. It makes me think that a poet as prolific as Emily would have to have a mob within her heart.

Polly. It made me think of what they call "Monkey Mind," when you're meditating. There's so much going on, you can't suppress it, you can't police it. As you try to become calmer, it keeps arising again, because it's there. So, it might be somewhat her thinking about how that works for her. When she's in a meditative mood, how these roiling hurricanes still circulate through her mind, her body.

Melba. I think that the lines that Greg [M] opened with are an interesting counterbalance to that, I think you were pointing out, the riot can be the social situation into which you are thrown - the social violence that she experienced - the violation of intellect and opportunities - the curtailment of her growth - that might be the riot given at the first, and that's called peace, because that's what society says is the appropriate way, and then the mob begins to riot within her heart. No one else knows where it is, or what it looks like, or what it sounds like, but the hurricane is growing. I think it's interesting - we can locate the riot outside, in a social situation, but we can locate the riot inside her in terms of many voices and many passions.

Polly. And don't you think they're both? When you're born female in the society where femaleness was suppressed the way hers was -

Melba. One certainly leads to the other.

Polly. - they are, in a way, the same.

Melba. But it's interesting, because I think there's an ambiguity here that Dickinson seems to allow it to be both. I think the riot given - passive voice - she's not going to fill that; she's not going to give us the back story on that.

Jill. It's very much like some of Auden's poems. They have geography as a metaphor for inner life, or [inaudible] conscious. I could see him talking about the riot, although I can't cite it right now. It's very intellectual. What I mean by that is, the craft of having it remain ambiguous, and having the metaphor work on several levels, but all of them apart from what she might be saying.

Melba. Yes. But that kind of moves with the concealed anger, doesn't it? Yeah. She's leaving out many possible interpretations that the poem is about what's not seen.

Judith. Does she talk about Police in other poems? It's unusual, isn't it?

Jill. Yes, because she uses bailiff, sheriff, magistrate.

Greg M. She threatened to call the police on brother Austin once, for daring to write poetry. [laughter]

Melba. According to emilydickinson.org, the only other poem in which Police appears is Franklin 1056, Could I but ride indefinite.

Judith. Well, we'll leave our congenial ground and go on to the next poem.

Robert reads.
I tie my Hat — I crease my Shawl —

Life's little duties do — precisely —

As the very least

Were infinite — to me —

I put new Blossoms in the Glass —

And throw the old — away —

I push a petal from my Gown

That anchored there — I weigh

The time 'twill be till six o'clock

I have so much to do —

And yet — Existence — some way back —

Stopped — struck — my ticking — through —

We cannot put Ourself away

As a completed Man

Or Woman — When the Errand's done

We came to Flesh — upon —

There may be — Miles on Miles of Nought —

Of Action — sicker far —

To simulate — is stinging work —

To cover what we are

From Science — and from Surgery —

Too Telescopic Eyes

To bear on us unshaded —

For their — sake — not for Ours —

'Twould start them —

We — could tremble —

But since we got a Bomb —

And held it in our Bosom —

Nay — Hold it — it is calm —

Therefore — we do life's labor —

Though life's Reward — be done —

With scrupulous exactness —

To hold our Senses — on —
                                 -J443/Ft522/M256

I've been puzzling over the topic "anger," because anger hasn't spoken to me much, as coming from Emily Dickinson, and this feeling, to some extent, seems to get to the feelings below ; anger - a sense of acceptance, a sense of despair, maybe, a sense of letting go. But still, I'm experiencing the special skill of Emily Dickinson is that she probes beneath the anger to those underlying feelings.

Jill. [inaudible] the word sicker to describe our repression and our social graces, in stanza 3. She seems in that stanza to say "We came to flesh" - like when we were using the word "given"  in the previous poem to say "when we're born"

 - from nothing, because she sometimes questions about immortality. I'm just trying to parse this little part, when it changes. Everything's clear until you get to that. That's when it opens up, and it's in the exact middle. There may be — Miles on Miles of Nought —/ Of Action, and I don't know what syntax Action has

Robert. The way I receive that stanza is, "My life's work is complete, and then there's emptiness, and you hang on there, but the vitality is gone.

Jill. Yeah.

Polly. I think it's very much about gender. I think she's saying you have to perform, and it sometimes stings, but it's also part of who you are, because as you're born into this particular body, and whether the constructs of your society allow you to express your true self or not, you are still in this performative position where you have to perform these female tasks which begin to sting, and perhaps even destroy you're true sense of self.

Robert. Hm. Well, I appreciate that input. I certainly saw the first stanza as a woman's tasks. I was kind of duplicating that with man's tasks, and I could [inaudible] out something for myself, but I can appreciate how a woman's perspective shifts the view.

Victoria. I think this poem goes beyond a gender kind of thing. To me, I think this is one of the saddest poems that she wrote. To me, it feels like it's less about anger, except maybe at God. To me, it feels like there's a lot of grief, here, and that is what's really underlying. So - a woman - you just go through the motion of all of these things. You put the blossoms and take the dead flowers out of the vase, and you do those other things that kind of anchor you to this real world. So, maybe for you, Robert, or for my husband, you might go out and stack firewood. It's just one piece of wood after another. It's the same kind of thing; just do the little thing that will keep you from completely losing it, and everything around you, and all those that are connected to you, you know they're still alive - you just keep going. You just keep going, even though you're feeling this great loss and it may look [inaudible] on the surface, you're doing OK. You're still out there stacking wood or filling flowers, but you're so gone in grief.

Polly. There's a lot of frustration here. It's so meaningless - the labors.  [crosstalk]

Robert. Resignation

Greg M. Resignation's a good word.

Polly. Also sarcastic, you know?

Greg D. Do you think the very ending is sarcastic though? It seems to me that she's trying to focus on something of value.

Polly. Yeah, she's holding on, probably through her poems, but through an exactness. That's how she keeps going, where somebody else would just give up and drink.

Judith. When I see in that last line is, that in order to survive she has to pay attention to each little task and not remember where she said And yet Existence some way back/ Stopped struck my ticking through. I mean, that's an incredible pair of lines.

Greg D. Yeah, that's one of her many amazing statements on time. Wow.

Judith. And it just seems that something has happened, and she just has to get through all these things that she's supposed to do. It's somehow just surviving by paying attention to the moment. And now I have to wash the dishes. To hold our Senses on, I mean, that's just an amazing way to say it.

Buleigh. With scrupulous exactness/ To hold our Senses on - That makes me think that there's something that anchors one, in the routine.

Judith. I agree with you, Burleigh. I believe she is talking about how these ordinary daily tasks, as much as they might really start to grate, and seem tiresome and pointless, are really what life is. It's what we do every day that makes us hold ourselves in existence without just flying apart.

Greg M. I guess I saw this as a little bit gendered, too, because of the references to tying the hat and creasing the shawl. Also, I don't really recognize this feeling. I'm sure I've never felt this bad. So, separate from me, maybe?

Jill. We want to be you, Greg. [laughter]

Greg D. Well, for me, all of those activities - I do them all. They're not really carefully gendered. I put my hat on, I put a scarf on.

Jill. Do you push a petal from your gown?

Greg D. I just now brushed a crumb off of my pants. [laughter, crosstalk]

Margaret. To me, this poem expresses the fact that she was ill for much of her life. She's trying to compensate. To cover what we are/ From Science and from Surgery; If you take those lines literally [inaudible] To bear on us unshaded / For their sake not for Ours -She doesn't let them know how sick she really is. When you are very sick, you don't like to do things; you move very slowly, very carefully.

Robert. I puzzled a little over that stanza. I was trying to turn it into - that science, medicine, can look into the physicality of it, but can't get down to the deep emotions.

Judith. I think that's trying to stay sane. We hold our Senses on to try to stay sane.

Victoria. What does she mean by Of Action sicker far?

Melba. I'm reading, There may be Miles on Miles of Nought, even more lacking in action than I am experiencing now. But, Margaret's reading on that [not transcribed here due to inaudibility]. Margaret, I thin you were pointing out the sense that, if you're sick, you're even less active. So, it's not only lacking in action, but depleted and unable to act.

Margaret. And to simulate that action. It's stinging work. And simulate is an interesting word, because that is what poetry does. It's a simulation of reality.

Victoria. Could this illness then, that you're talking about, be not necessarily a physical illness? If something happened, some way back -

Margaret. Yes, absolutely, I think it could be. Though life's Reward be done - she's lost whatever she had.

Victoria. That's why I had that feeling of grief. And, perhaps those emotion can be coupled. You can feel an intense loss, and above the grief you can be so angry at God, or at life, for letting this thing happen - of losing someone - or whatever the circumstance is - or becoming, given this terrible diagnosis, underneath that anger could be grief.

Melba. I've been looking at this as a sort of existential meditation that, you're given this incredible gift of existence. You're born into the world, but you don't have enough time to possibly complete yourself in the course of your life. No matter how long it is, you can't get to the point where you cannot cannot put yourself away As a completed Woman and say, "I've done everything here is to do." And in addition, you're stuck with this daily round of dishes and dishes and dishes. I'm wondering if that's the anger and the grief in the poem. I just can't possibly finish and be the person I want to be, and in addition, I'm out here in the garden weeding again. [laughter]

Victoria. I can relate to that. [laughter]

Robert. I can see this as a poem of affirmation, too, in stead of grief. The tenacity - the holding onto life.

Jill. I think I finally got it - the sentence. Could it be this? There may be Miles and Miles of Nought - like nothingness. But it's far sicker if we act [inaudible] as if that action is simulation - in stead of reality. I think you're right in that To simulate is stinging work is its own clause. Then you have to attach sicker far to something that it modifies - so- it's sick to do meaningless action - which these chores are, and also going to all the social rounds that ladies had to do, that she dropped out of, wisely. So it's action that's sicker than miles and miles of nothingness. And it is very existential, because in existentialism you're supposed to make your own choices about what your life means, and she says "I can' make any choices at all."

Melba. I'm wondering - proto-Kierkegaard; the sickness unto death.

Jill. Yeah!

Judith. Well, let's leave all these different interpretations and go on to the next poem.

Jill reads.
Mine Enemy is growing old —

I have at last Revenge —

The Palate of the Hate departs —

If any would avenge

Let him be quick — the Viand flits —

It is a faded Meat —

Anger as soon as fed is dead —

'Tis starving makes it fat —
                                 - J1509/Fr1539/M629

[ To hear Jill read this poem aloud, go https://youtu.be/UZDtNHEbPw4 ]

Greg. That's an anger poem. [laughter]

Judith. Miller says that this was a poem considered for donating to the mission circle, "for the benefit of children in certain foreign lands." [exclamations of incredulity]

Margaret. There were three copies of this poem. When you have multiple copies, it seems to mean that she thinks well of it. There's a draft, with some variants, and then there's the one that she sent Higginson, and then there was another fair copy found in her papers. It may have been a manuscript intended for charity that she didn't send, if Higginson said no. [laughter]. The charity could publish a book of contributed poems to raise money.

Judith. It's for the benefit of the children; it doesn't mean that the poems were for the children.

Jill. She's actually saying you should have revenge.

Melba. You kill the anger by taking revenge, is the way I'm reading this. The way I'm reading this, she's really yanking their chain. [laughter]

Margaret. She has a variant in the first draft - "my foe is growing old."

Greg D. Which I think was used once Blake in a poem
I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

Isn't that kind of counter-intuitive, though? Usually if you feed your anger you just get more and more angry. Here it's different, though. It's the opposite.

Greg M. I think the idea here is that anger is fed by gaining revenge.

Jill. Yeah, it's a pro-revenge call.