Louisville Mojo: Hello Miss Dickinson

The other day I received an email in my hotbox that said this: Hello Miss Dickinson,what interests you? I wrote back: Dickinson as in Emily Dickinson? Yep,that Dickinson.
No doubt most of you know who Emily Dickinson is but in case you don't she was one of the great poets of the 19th century.She was a brilliant recluse who wrote a great deal about death and nature. Sometimes she wrote about God and her emotional life. The few people she kept close to her knew she loved poetry and wrote it (they believed) as a hobby. What they found after her death was a drawer stuffed with thousands of poems each a work of genius,and each more brilliant than the last. Her family published them to great acclaim. This is not so tragic as it sounds,Emily would have hated the attention. For over one hundred years she has been intriguing because of her utter self possession. Emily Dickinson inhabited her own brilliant self sustaining world. We can never truly know her yet we are blessed she gives us an occasional glimpse into her beautiful soul.

Here is her most famous poem. It's the first I ever read and it remains my favorite.

I'M NOBODY

I'm nobody!Who are you?
Are you nobody,too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public,like a frog
To tell your name the live long day
To an admiring bog!

Just for fun here are some lines. Please keep in mind that most of her poems were untitled unless otherwise noted.

A charm invests a face
Imperfectly beheld,-
The lady dare not lift her veil
For fear it be dispelled.

*****

I know that he exists Somewhere,in silence.
He has hid his rare life
From our gross eyes.

*****

I many times thought peace had come,
When peace was far away;
As wrecked men deem they sight the land
At the centre of the sea

*****

Surgeons must be very careful
When they take the knife!
Underneath their fine incisions
Stirs the culprit,-life!

*****

COBWEBS

The spider as an artist
Has never been employed
Though his surpassing merit
Is freely certified

By every broom and Bridget
Throughout a Christian land.
Neglected son of genius,
I take thee by the hand.

*****

We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.

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