I was inspired to read Emily Dickinson’s poetry from another
book itself, and perhaps many may think, quite unusually, ‘The Humans’ by Matt
Haig. The book references the lines ‘How happy is the little stone/ which
rambles in the alone’ – lines which filled my mind with thoughts, just as a
little stone may accumulate layers of dust
as it continues on its way.
Forming thoughts is part of what it is to be human, what it is to live,
and therefore it appears appropriate that I picked up Dickinson’s collection
entitled ‘Life’.
Of course, ‘life’ is almost impossible to conceptualise and
Dickinson does not attempt this with any kind of broad-brush philosophizing.
What I find enchanting about her poetry is that is it abrupt yet honest – it is
a collection which explores conceptions rather than seeks to define them. For
example, ‘Life’ opens with ‘Success’
which she explores in terms of the negative – that it is valued most by those
who do not often have it. It is the aim to succeed and ability to reorganise it
which is important, just as Dickinson’s poetry provides a reorganisation of observance
on the human condition.
A sensation Dickinson pays particular attention to is that
of ‘pain’ – and like ‘success’, she defines it neither as explicitly positive
or negative, but as a ‘mystery’. For me, as a child, the word ‘mystery’ always
held a certain hope to it – that some improved identity could be assumed – and
this is what Dickinson explored in relation to pain; that it can indeed make
life, and our appreciation of it, more poignant. Although Dickinson uses what
at the time would have been considered unusual largely untitled verse, often
with slant rhyme, as a writer of 19th century America, her work offers allusion both to the
domestic and the epic. Although Dickinson was born in 1830 and lived much of
her life in isolation, maintaining friendships through correspondence, her
poetry of ‘Life’ leaves a rich imprint – short lines yet enormous metaphors
such as ‘the charge within the bosom’ which sorrow may make us feel. Dickinson
appears able to cultivate the written word both as an individual, and as
expression of the scale of emotions she felt which may well appeal to all of us
– her particular half-fear, half-fascination of death is evident considering
her experience of the loss of a close cousin when only a young girl.
In some lines the solitude of Dickinson’s position can be
sensed profoundly. For example, ‘The
Lonely house’ where ‘The moon slides down the stair’, reflects both the magic
and melancholy of being alone. And that
is perhaps what I find most profound about Dickinson’s poetry, that it faces
the dualities and paradoxes of life, that situations do not always unfold as we would anticipate . she laments ‘I could have touched!’ – and
therefore, there is hope, for even when things seem bleak, it does not mean
they are definitely so, as the mind gives us the ability to think otherwise.
Hope is a human element engineered by the mind and the
beauty if belief. Dickinson’s is a hope
which extends to others, in terms of belief in human life itself. Perhaps most
memorable for me in the collection entitled ‘Life’ are the lines ‘Here a mist,
and there a mist/ Afterwards -- day!’- the affirmation in the natural world
that despite the darkness, there can be light. This brings the topic back to
the importance that I was inspired to read Dickinson from another book ‘The
Humans’. It seems almost appropriate that I accessed Dickinson and her writing
in this way, after all, it is her repeated emphasis of the liberty of reading
and the gifts that a book can bring which has made myself determined to
encourage others to do the same – go out and read.
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