Yesterday, Dec. 10th, marked the 194th birthday of Emily Dickinson (b. 1830), one of America’s most gifted poets.
Her love of nature, keen observations on life’s ironies, and daring truthfulness won me over early. I know of no poetry with more nuance.
Of her many poems, my favorite is “A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest” with its nature analogies exhibiting the incongruity of the outer appearance with the inner reality. We are often masters at concealing life’s griefs.
Though I’ve visited The Homestead (Amherst , MA) on several occasions, I’m ready to visit again to take-in the Dickinson Museum updates, which include the restoration of Emily’s beloved garden, her father’s gifted conservatory to Emily and her sister, Lavinia, and the recently completed reconstruction of the family’s carriage house.
In short, The Homestead is my literary Mecca, as there is much in Emily’s sensibility that resonates with me.
Below, Emily’s upstairs bedroom where she composed her nearly 2000 poems and many letters:
It was cerebral musician Patty Smith who reminded me of Dickinson’s birthday in her substack post, replete with quotations from her poems and letters.
I’m repeating them here, as they superbly express Dickinson’s keen sensitivity and writing acumen. Smith observes that any of them would serve well as a writing prompt:
“Forever is composed of nows.”
“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”
“We turn not older with years but newer every day.”
“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.”
“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”
“That it will never come again is what makes life sweet. Dwell in possibility. Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?”
“Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door.”
“The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul–BOOKS.”
“The lovely flowers embarrass me. They make me regret I am not a bee…”
“I don’t profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense.”
“Life is a spell so exquisite that everything conspires to break it.”
“Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.”
“To shut your eyes is to travel.”
“your brain is wider than the sky”
“How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,–you must have noticed them in the street,–how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?”
“I have been bent and broken, but -I hope- into a better shape.”
–RJoly
Brimmings: up from the well 