WWEDD? [by Sally Ashton]

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)

Comments

[jj]

ladies: the poem is about spotting a snake in the grass. dickinson is writing in the late 19th century whereby the sexual extrapolations you assert are highly, highly unlikely. if you want to get off while reading poetry read sharon olds or allen ginsberg, but leave ms. dickinson out of your mid-life fantasies.

[Stacey]

A Narrow fellow is one of my favorite Dickenson poems. I've argued with others about "Several of Nature's people . . ." and wonder who others think they are.
Thanks Sally.
-- sdh

[DL]

If the snake with his shaft parting the grass isn't a highly sexual image, I don't know what is. One of the most surprising moments in this blatantly phallic poem occurs when the author announces that she was once a barefoot boy. There are other instances of deliberate gender confusion in the Dickinson oeuvre.

The knowledge that her initials, an abbrevation for "editor," now stand for "erectile dysfunction," would have bemused the poet, no?

Conventional view is that "Nature's people" are animals. What thinkest thou?

[sally]

Stacey- Great question and one that shows the imaginative freedom Dickinson’s poem allows simply by the nature of its reticence, the fact that she didn’t list specific “people.” That’s part of what makes a good poem great, right? It offers enough terrific detail to keep us present yet leaves portals open for our individual experiences and imaginations to enter as participants, not just observers. And, as in all great works, from there the poem continues to work on a number of levels. The first, where it has to work, is the literal, whatever the literal consists of for a given poet, and of course, Dickinson’s does. Readers share the stun of her encounter. Then, like a ripple from a stone, different associations and resonances occur. That’s a poem’s power and pleasure. And if an association is there and carries throughout a particular reading, then it is there, culturally and humanly alive.

In this case, on the literal, and I too would love to hear other ideas, I think of Nature’s people as those other creatures that people her writing, most prominently birds, insects, the occasional deer, but also the elephant and tiger, and who am I to limit her imaginative forays, if elephant or tiger, maybe specific people she knew. Well, I’ll end but thanks for the opportunity to think further. And what do you think they be?

to jj: as i have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, ed had a most active erotic life -- probably more active than most of us. Her famous so-called master letters, for example, are extremely well known, crazily hot, yet must be unfamiliar to someone who chastises "sexual extrapolations" -- which actually sounds like something i'll suggest the next time Mistress and i listen to "Venus in Furs." also, take a few minutes to research emily's role in the affair between her brother austin and mabel loomis todd.

Morns like these we parted,
Noons like these she rose...

What is it exactly that parted? What is it that rose? In fact, could "rose" also in a deflected way allude to something (Shakespeare called it "nothing," as in much ado) that has petals kind of like a rose? No, not in the late 19th century when people wore bloomers!

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[Dweeb Johnson]

hey i think that is a good idea keep up the good work

[Chicago 2016]

Hello great blog good info