Riddles in the dark...
It's funny -- I couldn't stand Emily Dickinson for the longest time. I got frustrated with her short verse, her choppiness, her stupid dashes and slant rhymes, her craziness...
I don't know what happened, but I began really enjoying her poetry about a year or a year and a half ago. She's a master of the image, she's got incredible rhythm, and her rhymes and near-rhymes are incredibly clever. Her poems are like the concentrated essence of things, boiled down to the core, and they are fantastically simple while still remaining aloof and complex. Her poems are tricky, dynamic, and almost always surprising. Here's a particular poem I like, and it really does surprise me every time:
A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel--
A Resonance of Emerald--
A Rush of Cochineal--
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head--
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride--
It's a poem, but it's a riddle. Do you know what she's talking about? (Don't say it if you already know the answer! Only valid guesses will be accepted!) She gives you clues with the descriptions, yes, but the sounds in the first four lines are also a hint.
This is what is so cool about imagery, about metaphors and similes and synecdoche and metonymy and all kinds of figurative language: you use it to go away from whatever it is you are talking about in order to see that thing (whatever it is) in new ways. It's a paradox -- by going away from the object (comparing it to something it isn't or describing it in a way that is totally new), you somehow come closer to it. And you can look at it the same way again! I've got a Wallace Stevens poem coming up next that is a great example of this kind of image-making...and it models a fantastic exercise that can help aspiring poets work on imagistic language. Stay tuned...
I don't know what happened, but I began really enjoying her poetry about a year or a year and a half ago. She's a master of the image, she's got incredible rhythm, and her rhymes and near-rhymes are incredibly clever. Her poems are like the concentrated essence of things, boiled down to the core, and they are fantastically simple while still remaining aloof and complex. Her poems are tricky, dynamic, and almost always surprising. Here's a particular poem I like, and it really does surprise me every time:
A Route of Evanescence
With a revolving Wheel--
A Resonance of Emerald--
A Rush of Cochineal--
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts its tumbled Head--
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy Morning's Ride--
It's a poem, but it's a riddle. Do you know what she's talking about? (Don't say it if you already know the answer! Only valid guesses will be accepted!) She gives you clues with the descriptions, yes, but the sounds in the first four lines are also a hint.
This is what is so cool about imagery, about metaphors and similes and synecdoche and metonymy and all kinds of figurative language: you use it to go away from whatever it is you are talking about in order to see that thing (whatever it is) in new ways. It's a paradox -- by going away from the object (comparing it to something it isn't or describing it in a way that is totally new), you somehow come closer to it. And you can look at it the same way again! I've got a Wallace Stevens poem coming up next that is a great example of this kind of image-making...and it models a fantastic exercise that can help aspiring poets work on imagistic language. Stay tuned...
posted by Susanna | 12:43 PM
4 Comments:
Yeah, I had a hard time with Emily Dickinson ever since my senior English teacher told me you can sing all of her poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose of Texas." I didn't think a lot of her, but I read something by her about 'wild nights' and I was surprised. Could this be the Emily of "I'm nobody, who are you?" Maybe so. I love the one about the snake, but I hadn't read this one before. I'm tired so I haven't figured out what it is yet. I will.
I must admit I am stumped (and terribly out of practice and "figuring out" poetry).
But as to the above comments "Wild Nights!" is one of my favorites as well.
Wild nights - wild nights
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
our luxury.
Futile the winds
to a heart in port
Done with the compass
Done with the chart.
Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor tonight
In thee.
PS - Susanna, Cosmosis "helped" me type this. I think he sensed it was to you. He sends his love. :D
Um, is it a hummingbird?
We have a winner!
I've heard lots of guesses, including "a train," "a bike," "a bee," and some others. All good guesses. But Laura got it right...it is indeed a hummingbird!
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