The Complete Poems - Emily Dickinson

"When it goes, 'tis like the distance
On the look of death."

You may have noticed that of all the books I have discussed so far none of them have contained more than a few lines of poetry. As a student of literature I must understand and appreciate the significance of poetic expression and the vast array of forms and meters in which poetry is found. That said, I must openly admit that poetry rarely attracts my attention and I tend to encounter verse more often through drama or narrative (Shakespeare or Chaucer) than by reading short poems. Some of this might have to do with just how concentrated the artistic effect of poetry can be. What I mean is this: in narratives the artistic significance has a great deal more to do with structure and character development whereas in poetry, given the short form we must search for artistic significance in word choice, cadence, and the subtle imagery created by interplay between the two. Poetry is significantly more condensed and as a result open to an unfortunately larger degree of critical license in its interpretation. While some might see this as a point of greater interest in poetry to me I find that it also opens the critical world up for a greater degree of disparity. Besides, I think I just like stories better...

Now, with the above it may seem strange that Emily Dickinson, a poetess who is admittedly generally out of vogue in critical circles, is my absolute favorite. I'm not exactly sure what it is in Dickinson's poetry that strikes a chord with me but it must be a weird and wonderful combination of her simple yet accessible rhyme scheme (she is often maligned for her nursery-style rhyme), profound vocabulary, and her pleasantly macabre style.

The particular poem I've chosen to quote above I first read in high school and even wrote a short bit of accompanying guitar music to perform for a class project. For some reason "There's a Certain Slant of Light"'s depiction of autumn as a prefigured memento-mori reminds the reader of the perpetual presence of death but in a way that has potential for comfort as well as sadness, like the prismatic aspects of church organ music.

Another aspect of Dickinson that, like a bad critic, I can't help but attach to my reading of her poetry. So much of Emily's poetry focuses on death and the potential for human sadness yet it was written by a woman in near seclusion and never intended to be published. in some ways I can't help but wonder how this woman appears to have captured such a profound vision of a nearly universal human experience that may only have touched her to a limited degree. But perhaps this is merely the purest distillation of a human pondering of the ending of life. Perhaps I'm simply morbid and simply find her poetry interesting but in any case I don't mind in the least that hers is the only book of poetry on my shelf (at least the only one that I have ever actively sought).
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Dickison, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown, and Co. 1890.