Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, she lived a reclusive life, had a strange penchant for dressing in white, wrote nearly 1800 poems— of which only several were published in her life, and those with massive revisions.
Her work was so wildly different from the other poets of her time. Little poems with tiny lines, odd punctuation and capitalization, no titles… Her works often center on mortality and eternity. She is now one of the most celebrated of American poets, though, in her own lifetime, she was virtually unknown.
This work was untitled and like most of her poems is known by its first line. I’m Nobody! Who are you?
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 Bog! (1861)
*some versions, including the first publication, use “banish us” instead of “advertise.” Her original manuscripts use “advertise.”
Marvin Bell grew up in Long Island, taught at University of Iowa and has written 16-something books of poetry. Here’s his poem, The Mystery of Emily Dickinson, which can be found in his book, Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See.
Sometimes the weather goes on for days
but you were different. You were divine.
While others wrote more and longer,
you wrote much more and much shorter.
I held your white dress once: 12 buttons.
In the cupola, the wasps struck the glass
as hard to escape as you hit your sound
again and again asking Welcome. No one.
Except for you, it were a trifle:
This morning, not much after dawn,
in level country, not New England’s,
through leftovers of summer rain I
went out rag-tag to the curb, only
a sleepy householder at his routine
bending to trash, when a young girl
in a white dress your size passed,
so softly!, carrying her shoes. It must be
she surprised me– her barefoot quick-step
and the earliness of the hour, your dress–
or surely I’d have spoken of it sooner.
I should have called to her, but a neighbor
wore that look you see against happiness.
I won’t say anything would have happened
unless there was time, and eternity’s plenty. (1977)
Hart Crane was an American poet, influenced quite a bit by New York, though he was born in Ohio. The alienation he felt, being homosexual, served as a muse throughout his life, and possibly contributed to his death, which is considered a suicide. He is considered one of the more influential poets of the English language, although, like many writers (including the best of the best), he was plagued by feelings of failure.
To Emily Dickinson
You who desired so much– in vain to ask–
Yet fed your hunger like an endless task,
Dared dignify the labor, bless the quest–
Achieved that stillness ultimately best,
Being, of all, least sought for: Emily, hear!
O sweet, dead Silencer, most suddenly clear
When singing that Eternity possessed
And plundered momently in every breast;
–Truly no flower yet withers in your hand,
The harvest you descried and understand
Needs more than wit to gather, love to bind.
Some reconcilement of remotest mind–
Leaves Ormus rubyless, and Ophir chill.
Else tears heap all within one clay-cold hill. (1933).
John Berryman was a major American poet in the second half of the 20th century and considered a founder of confessional poetry. Like many of the poets already featured on here, he had a problem with alcoholism and eventually committed suicide. Oh, poet, who among you lives and dies in happy ways? Here’s something he wrote for Emily Dickinson.
Your Birthday in Wisconsin You Are 140
‘One of the wits of the school’ your chum would say–
Hot diggity!– What the hell went wrong for you,
Miss Emily,– Besides the ‘pure and terrible’ Congressman
your paralyzing papa, — and Mr Humphrey’s dying
& Benjamin’s (the other reader)?…
Fantastic at 32 outpour, uproar, ‘terror
since September, I could tell to none’
after your ‘Master’ moved his family West
and timidly to Mr Higginson:
‘say if my verse is alive.’
Now you wore only white, now you did not appear,
til frantic 50 when you hurled your heart
down before Otis, who would none of it
thro’ five years for ‘Squire Dickinson’s cracked daughter’
awful by months, by hours…
Well. Thursday afternoon, I’m in Wankesha
drinking you ditties, and (dear) they are alive, –
more so than (bless her) Mrs F who teaches
farmers’ red daughters & their beaux my ditties
and yours & yours & yours!
Hot diggity! (1970)
