"Has anybody had any experience with these Festivals? They seem related and possibly commercial enterprises. "
The Secret Life of Poets: Two Sides of Emily Dickinson
I can’t resist either of these two poems by Emily Dickinson (1830 –1886).
Dickinson is famous for her reclusive life, but she carried on intense and often flirtatious correspondences with many friends. Early editions “corrected” her idiosyncratic style to make it conform to then-acceptable poetic conventions, but she is now recognized as a supremely bold, original poet—as great as Whitman, though his signature line is “I celebrate myself and sing myself,” and hers is “I’m nobody!” This jaunty poem is typically Dickinsonian in its ability to play two games at once. Assuming the modesty appropriate to a 19th century lady, she turns around and makes wicked fun of the publicity-seeking “Somebody:”
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you -- Nobody -- Too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!
How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!
How public -- like a Frog --
To tell one's name -- the livelong June --
To an admiring Bog!
But here is a completely different Dickinson. Did she write this to one of the men with whom biographers have speculated she was in love? Or to her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert Dickinson, who lived next door, and with whom she had a lifelong intense friendship? Or to someone entirely imaginary? Nobody knows for sure. But it sure is sexy.
Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile -- the Winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor – Tonight –
In Thee!
Comment
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Comment by Rochelle Levy on April 27, 2011 at 10:03pm -
I love her.. She is by far my favorite poet and we share the same birthday. i was always drawn to her work as it often mirrors my emotions perfectly-- such confusion and imbalance at times...
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Comment by Padmavani Karkera on April 26, 2011 at 10:52pm -
Thank you Alicia! It was good to read the second poem featured on this post, after a long time. I didn't know her poetry was edited to conform!
I am looking forward to who you will choose next week and the two different sides to that poet.
Cheers
Padmavani
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Comment by Angela Consolo Mankiewicz on April 26, 2011 at 6:48pm -
Great to re-read - how marvelously unpredictable she always is ....
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Comment by Debra Elramey on April 26, 2011 at 12:49pm -
Two of my favorites! Emily is a woman after my own heart... both contemplative and flirtatious.
~ Debra
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Comment by L. A. Howard on April 26, 2011 at 12:12pm -
Wow. Maybe I -do- need to get a book of her poetry..
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Comment by Maria Seager on April 26, 2011 at 11:39am -
thank you, I needed that.
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Comment by Ramey Channell on April 26, 2011 at 10:56am
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As a child, I loved "I'm Nobody! Who Are You?" This other Dickinson poem, Wild Nights, is so intriguing and sophisitcated, lovely really. Somehow it brings to mind Sonnets from the Portugese #43, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Very deeply emotional. Thanks, Alicia.
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Comment by Marilyn Yalom on April 26, 2011 at 10:38am -
Lovely to read these two poems side by side, the first long-familiar and the second less so. Thank you, Alicia, for this, and for your own poetry which I have admired for a very long time. Marilyn
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Comment by Satya Robyn on April 26, 2011 at 10:29am -
Thank you, Alicia, and for your wonderful poetry which means a lot to me. Sending blessings.
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Comment by Dorothy Randall Gray on April 26, 2011 at 10:29am -
One very telling quote from an Emily Dickinson poem:
I never dared to live out loud
The racket shamed me so.
It reminds me of what we're trying to do as women writers - live out loud. Can you hear me now?
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