04-07-2012, 04:32 AM
Few of Emily Dickinson's friends knew she was a poet.
I know because I took a class In American literature,
in college. I didn't know until then, as our high school
English was mainly English novels and The Weekly
Reader.
About six of my college classmates did know ED
was a poet, and that fact they proclaimed in class
as often as they were allowed to.
-- Oh Dr. Davis, I knew Emily Dickinson was a poet
before I enrolled in your class.
-- That's nice, and yes she was.
-- Our tenth-grade teacher said she was murdered.
At this, Dr. Davis (I remember this as if it were 25 years
ago), scurried about his notes, fingers nervous and eyes
surprised.
-- Murdered? I hadn't heard that. I know other poets,
several in fact, were afraid of being murdered, but most
of them were in such poor heath their systems couldn't
stand the shock of being killed (DeQuincey)-- like Lieb-
nitz, who wasn't murdered but died fearing he might be.
-- Liebnitz wasn't a poet.
-- Oh, yes. He was. He wrote many poems. Kant too had
a fear of being murdered, as he took his eighty-six-mile
circular walks through Konigsberg. The town had a high
murder rate and most of the crimes were committed dur-
ing the day, when people walked around. Most of the
murdered people, for obvious reasons, did not complete
their walks.
-- Hmmmmm
-- Back to Emily. In 1866 she handed six poems to the
editor of New Letters in New England, a journal
specializing in occasional verse-- occasional, here,
not meaning verse written for an 'occasion,' but verse
written conveniently, when one has the time to write,
not being burdened with hour to hour duties.
The poems flopped because they were, all six, written
without spacing on a single sheet of paper. Emily be-
came depressed, discouraged, and lonely. That's when
she took to the house attic, partly as a recluse.
Reclusing was just a part.
-- Hmmmmm
-- I think the other part was her fear of being mur-
dered-- less likely if she kept to the attic. Her
murder-fear came from being frightened by a snake
when she was 14; at 32 she was taken from the attic
and forced to ride in a carraige, a ride that took
her past a graveyard on the way to see her aunt who
lived on the other side of Amherst.
At 56 she shuffled off her mortal coil, un-murdered.
Van Gogh was afraid of being murdered, in his sleep.
During the day he was not afraid of it, because during
the day he was waiting at the train station in Arles
for his brother to bring canvases and oil paints.
Usually geniuses who wait at train stations aren't mur-
dered, but are often asked for their documentation that
they are citizens of the country they are in, residing,
at the time.
Most people who fear murder, are not. As a matter of
taste (voluptas) and not what they would wish, they, the
most of us, prefer the quickess of murder to a drawn and
lingering passing-- say, from Ebola disease. We accept
murder if our lives are spared and we emerge from it
without body scars from a hacking hatchet, without bloat
from a swallow of a poison, without a gunshot hole in our
chests--in short, without the effects and affects of murder.
The idea of a lover held at bay being murdered has a melt-
ing effect on coy mistresses-- that they regret not allow-
ing the mysteries of virginity solved before your death;
and, lo! you appear near the bedside alive and vital,
fresh from a ten-mile run on the back of your black Irish
stallion. You appear within arm's reach to finger the
downiness of blessed Venus, now, by second-chance warm
and open.
She throws back the quilts and invites you in. She takes
no chance you might be murdered again-- like the old man
man in Synge's Playboy Of The Western World.
(End part one)
I know because I took a class In American literature,
in college. I didn't know until then, as our high school
English was mainly English novels and The Weekly
Reader.
About six of my college classmates did know ED
was a poet, and that fact they proclaimed in class
as often as they were allowed to.
-- Oh Dr. Davis, I knew Emily Dickinson was a poet
before I enrolled in your class.
-- That's nice, and yes she was.
-- Our tenth-grade teacher said she was murdered.
At this, Dr. Davis (I remember this as if it were 25 years
ago), scurried about his notes, fingers nervous and eyes
surprised.
-- Murdered? I hadn't heard that. I know other poets,
several in fact, were afraid of being murdered, but most
of them were in such poor heath their systems couldn't
stand the shock of being killed (DeQuincey)-- like Lieb-
nitz, who wasn't murdered but died fearing he might be.
-- Liebnitz wasn't a poet.
-- Oh, yes. He was. He wrote many poems. Kant too had
a fear of being murdered, as he took his eighty-six-mile
circular walks through Konigsberg. The town had a high
murder rate and most of the crimes were committed dur-
ing the day, when people walked around. Most of the
murdered people, for obvious reasons, did not complete
their walks.
-- Hmmmmm
-- Back to Emily. In 1866 she handed six poems to the
editor of New Letters in New England, a journal
specializing in occasional verse-- occasional, here,
not meaning verse written for an 'occasion,' but verse
written conveniently, when one has the time to write,
not being burdened with hour to hour duties.
The poems flopped because they were, all six, written
without spacing on a single sheet of paper. Emily be-
came depressed, discouraged, and lonely. That's when
she took to the house attic, partly as a recluse.
Reclusing was just a part.
-- Hmmmmm
-- I think the other part was her fear of being mur-
dered-- less likely if she kept to the attic. Her
murder-fear came from being frightened by a snake
when she was 14; at 32 she was taken from the attic
and forced to ride in a carraige, a ride that took
her past a graveyard on the way to see her aunt who
lived on the other side of Amherst.
At 56 she shuffled off her mortal coil, un-murdered.
Van Gogh was afraid of being murdered, in his sleep.
During the day he was not afraid of it, because during
the day he was waiting at the train station in Arles
for his brother to bring canvases and oil paints.
Usually geniuses who wait at train stations aren't mur-
dered, but are often asked for their documentation that
they are citizens of the country they are in, residing,
at the time.
Most people who fear murder, are not. As a matter of
taste (voluptas) and not what they would wish, they, the
most of us, prefer the quickess of murder to a drawn and
lingering passing-- say, from Ebola disease. We accept
murder if our lives are spared and we emerge from it
without body scars from a hacking hatchet, without bloat
from a swallow of a poison, without a gunshot hole in our
chests--in short, without the effects and affects of murder.
The idea of a lover held at bay being murdered has a melt-
ing effect on coy mistresses-- that they regret not allow-
ing the mysteries of virginity solved before your death;
and, lo! you appear near the bedside alive and vital,
fresh from a ten-mile run on the back of your black Irish
stallion. You appear within arm's reach to finger the
downiness of blessed Venus, now, by second-chance warm
and open.
She throws back the quilts and invites you in. She takes
no chance you might be murdered again-- like the old man
man in Synge's Playboy Of The Western World.
(End part one)
![[Image: emily_dickinson.jpg]](http://simiannation.com/images/cartoons/december_07_trashlands/emily_dickinson.jpg)
![[Image: dickinson.JPG]](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_hvV0JHPYX_I/S8-BpcZxBcI/AAAAAAAAHvA/tN5yk5LiixA/s400/dickinson.JPG)