288 (redux)
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 Blog!
I can usually count on Emily Dickinson to get me out of a tight spot, and as I contemplated how to jump in to my guest-blogging week this livelong end of June, how to introduce myself, what foot to start out on, poem 288 came handily to mind, and with a one word fidget, how well she sums up an introduction! Croak! And I shall try my Froggiest not to be dreary.
Might Emily have blogged had there been an opportunity? I know she has the academically hardened reputation as a recluse, but her poetic range belies the idea. And #288. It has always seemed at least tongue in cheek to my reading, the second stanza ironic if not disingenuous (think: Dear Mr. Higginson . . .?). And all those exclamation points! Yes public! Like a frog! Writing and self-publishing 1775 (at least) poems and seeking to publish in the press are less than reclusive gestures. Give her a break. Women still wore corsets, couldn’t own property if married, and none could vote. What, she was supposed to leave the laundry and hop in the buggy for a book tour? Hang out with Walt in Brooklyn? I like to think the blog’s relative anonymity would have worked for her. And probably phone sex.
Speaking of, those of you who have read The Best American Erotic Poems do realize that Emily has the most poems of any American poet represented there, right? I assume at least most women familiar with her work know the burn when they read it. You just have to get past the cultural corset. I’ve recently been made aware of another of her poems that most definitely could have been included. I participated in the Favorite Poem reading this April at my undergrad alma mater San Jose State University, where I’ll also be teaching this fall. I read #754 (tight spot=Emily Dickinson), “My Life had stood – A Loaded Gun,” and in my introduction alluded to the highly erotic and subversive nature of the piece. Not to be outdone, a current SJSU undergrad, Madison Brewer, performed the most bodacious reading of #986, “A narrow Fellow in the Grass,” that I’ve ever been privileged to enjoy. Dreary Dickinson indeed. Give it a read, below.
986
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides --
You may have met Him -- did you not
His notice sudden is --
The Grass divides as with a Comb
A spotted shaft is seen --
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on --
He likes a Boggy Acre
A Floor too cool for Corn --
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot --
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone --
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me --
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality --
But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone --
-Emily Dickinson
(oh my! sa)
