This book, the 'Everyman's Library Pocket Poets' selection of 207* poems by esteemed-posthumously but unknown-when-alive introverted genius poet Emily Dickinson, is pure gold. I don't often read poetry, but E.D. is one of those big unignorable names, and when an alien in a novel I read back in 2014 found himself converted to humanity by reading some of her stuff, she became a rather more powerful blip on my poetry radar. I'd ingested snippets of her work, but reading through a full book** of poetry (even if it's barely making a dent in the 1780 or so she wrote - fortunately all of them are available for free on the internet) was an entirely more wholesome, uplifting, spiritually refreshing experience. I'm not meaning to come across as sarcastically poetic, this is legit poetry: it steers the heart and mind of the reader into fleeting contact with the eternal unknowable splendour of beauty and truth, of nature and God, of goodness and light, of life and infinity and the mad joyful place individuals can but take within the cosmos. These are the themes of her poems.
The collection is split into three sections, Death and Resurrection and Works of Love broadly explore these, and The Poet's Art likewise but with a more reflective focus on the work of poetry as an attempted series of communications of these enormous themes. There is nothing I can particularly say to sum up these poems but that they are magnificent and should be compulsory reading for all humans. I didn't even really have many thoughts in response to reading them - I was mostly just overwhelmed by 'wow' at the sheer power that language can have if arranged in such a way as this. This is poetry at its best: subtle yet vivid, sometimes funny, idiosyncratic, warm and honest and kind (often poems are direct complimentary praises of undersung animals, which is nice), full of God and perfection and humanity and finitude and bees and love and flowers and birds and the sky and the sea and heaven and morbidity and self-knowledge of the type that makes you realise how truly small you are in the world and how wonderful that can be.
The collection is split into three sections, Death and Resurrection and Works of Love broadly explore these, and The Poet's Art likewise but with a more reflective focus on the work of poetry as an attempted series of communications of these enormous themes. There is nothing I can particularly say to sum up these poems but that they are magnificent and should be compulsory reading for all humans. I didn't even really have many thoughts in response to reading them - I was mostly just overwhelmed by 'wow' at the sheer power that language can have if arranged in such a way as this. This is poetry at its best: subtle yet vivid, sometimes funny, idiosyncratic, warm and honest and kind (often poems are direct complimentary praises of undersung animals, which is nice), full of God and perfection and humanity and finitude and bees and love and flowers and birds and the sky and the sea and heaven and morbidity and self-knowledge of the type that makes you realise how truly small you are in the world and how wonderful that can be.
You don't have to read this exact book but please, I implore you, make your life richer, at least read some of Emily Dickinson's poetry - start here.
* I highlighted my favourites (i.e. ones that made me sit back, stare at the ceiling for a minute, exhale poignantly, blink and frown/smile, then re-read slowly) as I went through: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 13, 16, 22, 24, 28, 31, 36, 37, 39, 46, 48, 51, 52, 59, 63, 65, 68, 72, 74, 81, 82, 89, 95, 106, 109, 119, 131, 133, 134, 137, 142, 149, 151, 152, 164, 167, 168, 176, 178, 182, 185, 190, 192, 194, 200.
** The story of how I acquired it is quite good. I was in Paris last December, protesting for stronger international climate action at COP21, and while there among the many conversations I had one was about Emily Dickinson with an anarchist who was part of our demonstration group. They'd read her work before, and wholeheartedly encouraged me to do so; they also bemoaned the capitalist exploitation of her body of work for profit when she never profited from it herself when alive, and barely even had recognition for it. Seriously, read her life story, it's really sad. A woman who spent her life largely alone in thought and wonder constructing poems of unspeakable beauty about yet-greater-still unspeakable beauty - now packaged out by publishing conglomerates.
Anyway. On an afternoon off from training/preparing/planning/protesting, this leftist poetry-fan and I and a couple of others visited Shakespeare & Company, one of the most famous independent bookshops in the world, round the corner from Notré-Dame Cathedral - it's like heaven in there, fat shelves stacked to the ceiling with volumes old and new and fat and thin (but all expensive, I only went in to look around and smell things). Several hours later, back at the activist lodgings, my anti-capitalist acquaintance said "ooh, I forgot" and presented me with this very poem collection, which they'd apparently stolen as a gesture of respect for Emily Dickinson against modern booksellers. I'm not entirely convinced by their logic but I can respect the radical romanticism of their general intent. And it was indeed an excellent book, so thank you, my friend.
Anyway. On an afternoon off from training/preparing/planning/protesting, this leftist poetry-fan and I and a couple of others visited Shakespeare & Company, one of the most famous independent bookshops in the world, round the corner from Notré-Dame Cathedral - it's like heaven in there, fat shelves stacked to the ceiling with volumes old and new and fat and thin (but all expensive, I only went in to look around and smell things). Several hours later, back at the activist lodgings, my anti-capitalist acquaintance said "ooh, I forgot" and presented me with this very poem collection, which they'd apparently stolen as a gesture of respect for Emily Dickinson against modern booksellers. I'm not entirely convinced by their logic but I can respect the radical romanticism of their general intent. And it was indeed an excellent book, so thank you, my friend.
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