Cinematic Qualities in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson and Edwin Denby [by Larry Sawyer]

Given the difficulty Americans seem to have finding any common ground on the question of gun control, unsurprisingly, as a poet, I hear a particular poem rise up in my memory to provide a quiet but definitive answer. In fact, this particular poem is known for its haunting quality and its orchestral force that contradicts its seeming simplicity. I’m writing about Emily Dickinson’s “My Life It Stood – A Loaded Gun (764).”

No one would turn to the poetry of Emily Dickinson to find solutions to the current American gun control issue, which is why the possibility intrigues me. (If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is Florida.)

Rather than point to what the poem might mean, I’m more interested in Dickinson’s description, which provides such indelible force. Buoyed by an off-kilter rhythmic sensibility that required extreme daring and skill to execute, the first two stanzas provide some of the best lines of poetry ever written by an American. With a deadpan subtlety, Dickinson’s implication that the mountains’ echo to the report of the gun completes a tableau where the reader is able to visualize the action so seamlessly it actually feels as though we are also a part of that picture caught within the frame of the poem. In fact, the entire poem has a filmic quality. The action that drives this poem could easily serve as the plot for a short experimental film.

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master’s Head -
’Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -

With the line “The Mountains straight reply -” Dickinson provides such a convincing psychological photograph that, once this fiery image appears in the imagination of the reader, it’s nearly impossible to extinguish. The image is lasting because it’s provided in such stark contrast: we nearly expect the fourth line of that second stanza to rhyme with its second line because that’s the expectation created by the first stanza. This defiant unexpectedness gives the line its subtle visual force.

Edwin Denby, another poet able to do this, wrote poetry known for a somewhat elegiac mood, a certain bittersweet severity, and a terseness or brevity. Although Denby’s poetry also contains much wry humor, each short poem can seem like a photographic still-life, as consistently captured through stark description, a portrait of the details of his metropolitan life.

Without much of the surrealist quality that attracted me to other New York School writers, there has always been a quality to the poetry of Edwin Denby that satisfies on an almost visual level. In lines such as:

New York dark in August, seaward
Creeping breeze, building to building
Old poems by Frank O’Hara
At 3 a.m. I sit reading
Like a blue-black surf rider, shark
Nipping at my Charvet tie, toe-tied
Heart in my mouth—or my New York
At dawn smiling I turn out the light
Inside out like a room in gritty
Gale, features moving fierce or void
Intimate, the lunch hour city
One’s own heart eating undestroyed
Complicities of New York speech
Embrace me as I fall asleep

The scene is set in very few words, and the reader is immediately subsumed in Denby’s world. There is almost a painful clarity that, if not lingered upon because of its conversational tone, can almost be missed entirely. The drama provided by much of Denby’s work is somewhat muted but always very human. But the mechanical function of lines such as “At dawn smiling I turn out the light/Inside out like a room in gritty/Gale, features moving fierce or void/Intimate…” provide a big return on your investment of minimal time.

Denby shifts in his poetry very quickly from macro to micro and back, which is that at which Dickinson excelled. Other than simply gleaning the details and preoccupations of both writers as those qualities are displayed in the literal meaning inherent in the poems, this poet still marvels at how the visual aspects of the work of these two poets can absolutely haunt the mind. 

 

Comments

[DL]

It's a wonderful idea to turn to poems to help us with thorny political issues of the moment, but I had never thought of Emily Dickinson's immortal "loaded gun" in this context. And Edwin Denby is terrific, always. Kudos. -- DL

[Stacey]

I always had the sense that this Dickinson poem provided the inspiration for the Jim Jarmusch film "Dead Man," which pits "Dickinson" against "Blake."

But that's off the point. Great to revisit the Dickinson with a new perspective and I especially love "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is Florida." Denby is a favorite as well. His dance criticism is a model for how critics should approach their work, no matter what art form they're considering.

Thank you.

[Larry Sawyer]

Two of my favorite poets. Thanks for the kind words!