Emily Dickinson Note-Taking Lisa Joye Fall 2018

Overview:As you read Dickinson’s poetry and we discuss each poem in class, you will annotate and take notes in your packet. These annotations and notes should be detailed, specific, analytic, and thorough, addressing all of the following:

Underline or highlight significant passages Pay special attention to use of poetic devices and recurring subjects/themes Write comments, analysis, and questions in the margins Look up and write in definitions of unfamiliar words Mark key words/lines relating to literal meaning of poem Make note of evidence for form or structure of poem Underline or highlight topics, techniques, imagery, etc. typical of Frost Note contrasts, unanswered questions, and contradictions

On some poems, I will give you specific tasks to complete. Every poem we study is a possibility for your final in-class timed commentary, so EVERY poem should be covered in annotations and notes! While the primary purpose of these notes is to help you understand Dickinson’s poems, I will be reading and assessing your notes, so please make sure your writing is reasonably legible and your name is on the front page.

The following poems will all be covered in class and should all have detailed notes:

#712 “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” #254 “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” #303 “The Soul Selects Her Own Society” #280 “I Felt a Funeral, In my Brain” #360 “The Soul has Bandaged moments” #670 “One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted” #258 “There’s a certain Slant of light,” #327 “Before I got my eye put out” #632 “The Brain is wider than the Sky” #511 “If you were coming in the Fall”

Assessment:**Total Notes Packet is worth 100 points (10 points per poem)**

Notes will be graded on the following criteria: Thoroughness of annotations and notes—all important details noted Depth of analysis and comments Attention paid to literary features

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Attention paid to poet’s techniques and common features Evidence of original thinking Legibility and timeliness (turned in on time!)

- additional assignments for this unit -

Emily Dickinson Storyboard AssignmentDue:

*25 points (15 for effort and care put into aligning illustration with meaning, 10 for reflection)

While the deeper meanings of Dickinson’s poetry can sometimes be difficult to discern, her poetry is also remarkably simple in her use of setting and imagery. In other words, the surface story of each poem is usually pretty straight-forward and easy to understand. As a way to explore this idea further, you will create a storyboard for one of the poems we study in class. I suggest limiting yourself to an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper, but bigger is fine if that fits your artistic feeling for this assignment.

Your storyboard should be at least 6 frames long and highlight the most important elements of the poem, according to your own analysis and interpretations of the poem. Use the example from “It was not death, for I stood up” as a guide for how to structure your own storyboard. You will include words from the poem only (like the Graphic Poem example). The words can be incorporated into, below, or above the picture. Use color to highlight only the most important elements of the poem – be deliberate about this.

Have fun with this, and let it guide your analysis of the poem! After you’ve finished, write a 1-paragraph reflection on the back answering the question, “What do you better understand about this poem after having to create this storyboard?”

Emily Dickinson Envelope Poetry AssignmentDue:

*25 points (15 for effort and care put into aligning space with meaning, 10 for reflection)

EITHER: Take a Dickinson poem you like and copy it down on an envelope- show importance of the main images, ideas, topics, themes, etc that you think the poem speaks most loudly about in form or physicality and then fold the envelope or cut it into a shape that fits with the intention of the poem.

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OR: Write your own envelope poem that focuses on form as attached to meaning by using folds, cuts, positioning of words and/or phrases, etc

After you’ve finished, write a 1-paragraph reflection answering the question, “What do you better understand about Emily Dickinson after having to create this envelope poem?”

FINAL PASSAGE ANALYSISDUE:

EMILY DICKINSON was born in Amherst at the Homestead on December 10, 1830. Her quiet life was infused with a creative energy that produced almost 1800 poems and a profusion of vibrant letters.

Her lively Childhood and Youth were filled with schooling, reading, explorations of nature, religious activities, significant friendships, and several key encounters with poetry. Her most intense Writing Years consumed the decade of her late 20s and early 30s; during that time she composed almost 1100 poems. She made few attempts to publish her work, choosing instead to share them privately with family and friends. In her Later Years Dickinson increasingly withdrew from public life. Her garden, her family (especially her brother’s family at The Evergreens) and close friends, and health concerns occupied her.

With a few exceptions, her poetry remained virtually unpublished until after she died on May 15, 1886. After her death, her poems and life story were brought to the attention of the wider world through the competing efforts of family members and intimates. (emilydickinsonmuseum.org)

___________________________________________________________________________________Emily Dickinson: Her Childhood and Youth (1830-1855)

EMILY DICKINSON, the middle child of Edward and Emily Norcross Dickinson, was born on December 10, 1830, in the family Homestead on Main Street in Amherst, Massachusetts. Just two months earlier, her parents and older brother Austin had moved into the Homestead to live with Edward's parents, Samuel Fowler and Lucretia Gunn Dickinson, and several of Edward's siblings.

Shortly after Emily's younger sister Lavinia was born in 1833, their grandparents moved to Ohio after several years of troubling financial problems in Amherst. The Homestead was sold out of the family, but Emily's family remained in the Homestead as tenants for seven more years.

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The crowded house and Edward's growing legal and political career called for new quarters, and when Emily was nine years old, her family purchased a house on what is now North Pleasant Street in Amherst. Close to her older brother Austin and younger sister Lavinia, Dickinson had a fond attachment to the house on Pleasant Street. Domestic duties like baking and gardening occupied her time along with attending school, taking part in church activities, reading books, learning to sing and play the piano, writing letters, and taking walks.

Dickinson's formal schooling was exceptional for girls in the early nineteenth century, though not unusual for girls in Amherst. After a short time at an Amherst district school, she attended Amherst Academy for about seven years before entering Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in 1847. She stayed at the Seminary for one year, the longest time she spent away from home.

In youth Dickinson exhibited a social flair that retreated as she grew older: "I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don't doubt that I will have crowds of admirers at that age" (L6). She found delight in numerous female friendships, including those with Abiah Root, Abby Wood, Emily Fowler, and Susan Gilbert, who later became her sister-in-law. Although Dickinson never married, she had several significant male friends, among them Benjamin Newton, from whom she received her beloved copy of Emerson's Poems, and Henry Vaughn Emmons, with whom she shared some of her own early poetry. There is evidence she received at least one marriage proposal, from George H. Gould, a graduate of Amherst College, which came to naught.

Dickinson's youthful years were not without turmoil. Deaths of friends and relatives, including her young cousin Sophia Holland, prompted questions about death and immortality. From the Pleasant Street house, located near the town cemetery, Dickinson could not have ignored the frequent burials that later provided powerful imagery for her poems.

A wave of religious revivals in Dickinson's teen years addressed her Calvinist society's concern for the disposition of the human soul. Although Dickinson's friends, sister, father, and eventually brother all joined the church (her mother had joined the year after Emily was born), Emily never did, acknowledging plainly to a friend, "I am one of the lingering bad ones" (L36).

In Dickinson's early twenties, writing became increasingly important to her. In a letter to Austin that took him to task for writing poetry, she reveals something more significant about herself: "I’ve been in the habit myself of writing some few things, and it rather appears to me that you’re getting away my patent, so you’d better be somewhat careful, or I’ll call the police!” (L110) Her earliest extant writings—both are Valentines and uncharacteristic of her later work--were published anonymously during this period. A letter ("Magnum bonum, harem scarum") appeared in the Amherst College student publication The Indicator in 1850, and a poem "'Sic transit gloria mundi,'" in the Springfield Daily Republican in 1852.

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Dickinson's letters to her brother also reveal a growing sense of "difference" between herself and others: “What makes a few of us so different from others? It’s a question I often ask myself” (L118). This sense of distinction became more pronounced as she grew older and as her poetic sensibilities matured.

Emily Dickinson: The Writing Years (1855-1865)

ALTHOUGH EMILY DICKINSON'S CALLING AS A POET BEGAN IN HER TEEN YEARS, she came into her own as an artist during a short but intense period of creativity that resulted in her composing, revising, and saving hundreds of poems. That period, which scholars identify as 1858-1865, overlaps with the most significant event of American nineteenth-century history, the Civil War. During this time, Dickinson's personal life also underwent tremendous change.

In late 1855, Dickinson moved, somewhat reluctantly, with her family back to the Homestead, her birthplace. Her father had purchased the home in early 1855 and made significant renovations to it. The Homestead became part of an enhanced Dickinson estate when in 1856 Dickinson's older brother, Austin, married her close friend Susan Huntington Gilbert, and the couple built a home next door known as The Evergreens.

That household was a lively nexus for Amherst society, and Dickinson herself took part in social gatherings there early in the couple's marriage. Their lifestyle eventually would contrast markedly with her own, more reclusive manner. The couple's three children—Ned, born in 1861; Martha, in 1866; and Gilbert, in 1875—brought much joy to Dickinson's life, even though Susan's developing role as a mother may have put more distance between her and the poet.

In addition to providing close proximity to her brother and his family, the renovated Homestead offered Dickinson several other advantages. Edward Dickinson added a conservatory to the Homestead, where Emily could raise climate-sensitive plants. Now she could engage in her beloved hobby of gardening year-round. And Dickinson had her own bedroom, the southwest corner room on the second floor, a space essential to her writing.

By the time Dickinson turned 35, she had composed more than 1100 concise, powerful lyrics that astutely examine pain, grief, joy, love, nature, and art. She recorded about 800 of these poems in small handmade booklets (now called “fascicles”), very private “publications” that she shared with no one.

Dickinson did share a portion of her poems with family and selected friends whose literary taste she admired. Susan Dickinson received more than 250 poems throughout the two women's forty-year relationship, and to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who authored an article in an 1862 issue of the Atlantic Monthly that encouraged young people to write and publish, Dickinson sent about 100 poems. Although a few of her poems were published in newspapers, they were printed anonymously and apparently without her prior consent. The vast majority of her work remained known only to its author.

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Some events in Dickinson's life during her intense writing period are difficult to re-construct. Drafts of three letters, now called the "Master Letters," survive from late 1858 and early 1861. They suggest a serious and troubled (though unidentified) romantic attachment that some scholars believe drove Dickinson's creative output. During this time Dickinson also referred to a trauma that she described in a letter: "I had a terror -- since September -- I could tell to none" (L261). The cause of that terror is unknown.

Significant friendships such as those with Samuel Bowles, Rev. Edward Dwight, and Rev. Charles Wadsworth changed during this time, and Dickinson began to feel an increasing need for a "preceptor" to cope with her outpouring of verse and with questions about publication.

In 1864 and 1865, Dickinson underwent treatments for a painful eye condition, now thought to be iritis, with Boston ophthalmologist Henry W. Williams. While under the doctor's care (eight months in 1864, six months in 1865), she boarded with her cousins, Frances and Louisa Norcross. Those trips were to be her last out of Amherst; after her return in 1865, she rarely ventured beyond the grounds of the Homestead.

Emily Dickinson: The Later Years (1865-1886)

AFTER EMILY DICKINSON'S VISITS TO CAMBRIDGE FOR EYE TREATMENT IN THE MID-1860S, the poet settled into a quiet, reclusive existence with her parents and sister. Although she rarely ventured beyond the family Homestead, she did entertain several significant visitors, including Thomas Wentworth Higginson, whom she met in person for the first time in 1870 when he visited her at home in Amherst. To Higginson she offered her own definition of poetry: "If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?” (L342a)

Although Dickinson did continue to write poetry, she appears to have stopped formal assembly of the poems into booklets. Manuscripts dated to this period appear less finished than those of her intense writing period (1858-1865), though scholars are increasingly intrigued by what these later manuscripts—some of which are written on scraps of paper—suggest about her writing process. Dickinson's work reached the eyes of several writers and publishers who did express interest in publishing her work. In 1875 Higginson read a few poems by “Two Unknown Poetesses” to the New England Woman’s Club, and one of the "poetesses," who were not named during the reading, is believed to have been Dickinson.

Around the same time, the author and Amherst native Helen Hunt Jackson begged Dickinson to contribute a poem to a volume of anonymous verse:

"Would it be of any use to ask you once more for one or two of your poems, to come out in the volume of 'no name' poetry which is to be published before long by Roberts Bros.? If you will give me permission I will copy them—sending them in my own handwriting—and promise never to tell any one, not even the publishers, whose the

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poems are. Could you not bear this much of publicity? only you and I would recognize the poems." (L573a)

Dickinson's poem "Success is counted sweetest" does appear in A Masque of Poets (1878), though whether Dickinson actually gave advance permission is still in question.

In her later years, Dickinson enjoyed a romance with Judge Otis Phillips Lord, a friend of her father. He and his wife had been frequent guests at the Homestead. A widower when he began courting Emily Dickinson, Lord lived in Salem, Massachusetts. Drafts of letters to Lord suggest that the poet even considered marrying him, though she never did.

Dickinson's later life is marked by illness and death: her father's death in 1874, her mother's stroke in 1875, her nephew Gib's death at age eight in 1883, Otis Lord's death in 1884, Helen Hunt Jackson's death in 1885. The poet herself became ill shortly after her nephew Gib died: "The Crisis of the sorrow of so many years is all that tires me" (L873). She remained in poor health until she died at age 55 on May 15, 1886. She was buried four days later in the town cemetery, now known as West Cemetery.

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Guidelines for Reading Dickinson's Poetry

Speaker. Who is the speaker? What person (first, second, third) is she speaking in? If it is the first person plural, with whom has she aligned herself? To whom is the poem addressed?

Setting or Situation. What is the setting? Real? Abstract? What about the situation? Is there action in the poem? What is it?

What are the verbs? What is their tense? Their mood? In what ways does their syntax vary from what you expect? Are any of them archaic or unusual?

What is the form of the poem? Closed? Open? What is the meter? the rhyme scheme? Where does ED depart from these patterns and forms? Why?

Dickinson is noted for her use of special kinds of rhyme. Where does she use the following, and for what effect?

a. slant rhyme: a kind of consonance (relation between words in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but the vowels that precede them differ: add/read, up/step, peer/pare, while/hill)

b. eye rhyme: rhyme that appears correct from the spelling but is not so from the pronunciation, such as watch/match, love/move, through/enough

c. true rhyme: identity of terminal sound between accented syllables, usually occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse. The correspondence of sound is based on the vowels and succeeding consonants of the accented syllables, which must, for a true rhyme, be preceded by different consonants. Thus "fan" and "ran" constitute a true rhyme because the vowel and succeeding consonant sounds ("an") are the

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same but the preceding consonant sounds are different.

What elements are repeated? Inverted? Why? What instances of repetition does she use? What is the effect of the repetition?

IHS Literature of the AmericasLiterary Terms / Poetic Devices Dictionary

Alliteration: the repetition of initial consonant sounds used especially in poetry to emphasize and link words as well as to create pleasing, musical sounds. Example—the fair breeze blew, the white foam flew

Allusion: reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture. An indirect reference to something (usually from literature, etc.)

Analogy: a relationship of resemblance or equivalence between two situations, people, or objects especially when used as a basis for explanation

Antagonist: the character or force that opposed the protagonist (it can be a character, an animal, a force, or a weakness of the character)

Archetype: A resonant figure or mythic importance, whether a personality, place, or situation, found in diverse cultures and different historical periods. Archetypes differ from allegories because they tend to reference broader or commonplace (often termed “stock”) character types, plot points, and literary conventions. Paying attention to archetypes can help readers identify what an author may posit as “universal truths” about life, society, human interaction, etc. based on what other authors or participants in a culture may have said about them.

Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words. It is used to reinforce meanings of words or to set the mood. Example—mad as a hatter

Conflict: the struggle between two opposing forces that is the basis of the plot. 1) internal conflict character struggling with him/her self, 2) external conflicts-character struggling with forces outside of him/her self. For example, nature, god, society, another person, technology, etc.

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Consonance: the close repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after differing vowel sounds. For example, “pitter, patter”

Couplet: two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry

Connotation: the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition

Diction: a speaker or writer’s choice of words

Enjambment: is when a sentence, phrase, or thought does not end with the line of poetry. Rather, it carries over to the next line. Typically, enjambed lines of poetry do not have punctuation marks at the end. Poets use enjambment for many reasons, including to cause breaks in rhythm and rate of reading, or to move the reader through a complete thought without attention to the breaks that would seem natural due to rhythm.

End Rhyme: End rhyme occurs when the last syllables or words in two or more lines rhyme with each other. It is also known as “tail rhyme,” and occurs at the ends of the lines. The lines ending in similar sounds are pleasant to hear, and give musical effect to the poem or song. For example, “star light, star bright.”

Eye Rhyme: in poetry, an imperfect rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently (such as move and love, bough and though, come and home, and laughter and daughter)

Figurative Language: language that has meaning beyond the literal meaning: also know known as “figures of speech”

Flashback: a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time

Foreshadowing: important hints that an author drops to prepare the reader for what is to come, and help the reader anticipate the outcome

Free Verse: poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter

Hyperbole: a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect

Juxtaposition: is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters, and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem, for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts. For example, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.”

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Imagery: words or phrases that appeal to the reader’s senses. The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience

Internal Rhyme: Internal rhyme is a poetic device that can be defined as metrical lines in which its middle words and its end words rhyme with one another. It is also called “middle rhyme,” since it comes in the middle of lines.

Types of Internal Rhyme

Same Line: Rhyme in the same line comes when the words rhyme in a single line.For example, “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Separate Line: Rhyme in separate lines comes when two or more words rhyme in the middle of the separate lines. For example,“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.”End of, and Middle of Line: Rhyme of the words at the end of lines and words in the middle of the lines come when the words at the end of lines rhyme with the words in the middle of the next lines. For example:“… Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrowFrom my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore…”(The Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe)

Irony: a contrast between appearances and reality*Verbal irony: a writer says one thing, but means something entirely different.*Situational irony: occurs when something happens that is entirely different from what is expected.*Dramatic irony: occurs when the reader knows information that the characters do not.

Metaphor: a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison such as like or as.

Mood: the feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader. Sensory images and figurative language contribute to the mood of a selection, as do the sound and rhythm of the language.

Narrator: the person from whose point of view events are conveyed.Types of narrative: The narrator is the voice telling the story or speaking to the audience. However, this voice can come from a variety of different perspectives, including:

o First person: A story told from the perspective of one or several characters, each of whom typically uses the word “I.” This means that readers “see” or experience events in the story through the narrator’s eyes.

o Second person: A narrative perspective that typically addresses that audience using “you.” This mode can help authors address readers and

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invest them in the story.o Third person: Describes a narrative told from the perspective of an outside

figure who does not participate directly in the events of a story. This mode uses “he,” “she,” and “it” to describe events and characters.

1. In third person omniscient point of view, the narrator is all-knowing about the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

2. The third person limited point of view deals with a writer presenting events as experienced by only one character. This type of narrator does not have full knowledge of situations, past or future events.

3. In third person objective the story conveys only the external details of the characters—never their thoughts or inner motivations.

Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate sounds. Examples would be hiss, buzz, swish, and crunch.

Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which two contradictory words or phrases are combined in a single expression, giving the effect of a condensed paradox: “wise fool,” “cruel kindness,” “bitter-sweet.”

Personification: a figure of speech in which an object, animal, or concept is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes

Point of View: the vantage point, or stance from which a story is told, the eye and mind through which the action is perceived (first person point of view, third person point of view, omniscient point of view, objective point of view.) (See also Narrator).

Protagonist: the central character in a story: the one who initiates or drives the action. The protagonist faces a problem and must undergo some conflict to solve it.

Repetition: In poetry, repetition is repeating words, phrases, lines, or stanzas. Stanzas are groups of lines that are together. Repetition is used to emphasize a feeling or idea, create rhythm, and/or develop a sense of urgency.

Rhyme: A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words

Rhythm: is the repetition of a pattern of sounds in poetry. Rhythm is created by the alternation of long and short sounds and stressed and unstressed syllables. There are several different type of units of rhythm in poetry. The one that is most commonly studied and discussed is iambic pentameter. In iambic pentameter, each line of poetry has 10 syllables that alternate in an unstressed, stressed rhythmic pattern.

Setting: the time and place in which the action occurs.

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Simile: a figure of speech in which two seemingly unlike things are compared. The comparison is made explicit by the use of a word or phrase such as: like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems.

Stanza: A stanza is a group of lines that form the basic metrical unit in a poem. So, in a 12-line poem, the first four lines might be a stanza. You can identify a stanza by the number of lines it has and its rhyme scheme or pattern, such as A-B-A-B. There are many different types of stanzas.

Stream of consciousness: A mode of writing in which the author traces his or her thoughts verbatim into the text. Typically, this style offers a representation of the author’s exact thoughts throughout the writing process and can be used to convey a variety of different emotions or as a form of pre-writing.

Style: Comprised of an author’s diction, syntax, tone, characters, and other narrative techniques, “style” is used to describe the way an author uses language to convey his or her ideas and purpose in writing. An author’s style can also be associated to the genre or mode of writing the author adopts, such as in the case of a satire or elegy with would adopt a satirical or elegiac style of writing.

Suspense: the tension or excitement felt by the reader as he or she becomes involved in the story.

Symbol: a person, place, thing or event that stands for something larger than itself. It is usually something literal that stands for something figurative. Symbols typically recur throughout a narrative and offer critical, though often overlooked, information about events, characters, and the author’s primary concerns in telling the story.

Syntax: Syntax refers to word order, and the way in which it works with grammatical structures. As we are used to hearing things in certain orders, the effect of breaking with normal syntax is to draw attention to what is being said and the way it is said. For example, “Jane ate a cake.” Or “ A cake Jane ate.”

Theme: the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.

Tone: A way of communicating information (in writing, images, or sound) that conveys an attitude. Authors convey tone through a combination of word-choice, imagery, perspective, style, and subject matter. By adopting a specific tone, authors can help readers accurately interpret meaning in a text.

Voice: is the author's style, the quality that makes his or her writing unique, and which conveys the author's attitude, personality, and character

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Emily Dickinson:A Poet Who Pushed (and Recycled) the Envelope

‘The Gorgeous Nothings’ Shows Dickinson’s ‘Envelope Poems’

Adapted from The New York TimesBy HOLLAND COTTER DEC. 5, 2013

Like many a Connecticut Valley puritan, Emily Dickinson was practical, inventive and private. Dismissing the commercial marketing of poetry as an “auction of the mind,” she pioneered a very personal version of desktop publishing, creating 40 handwritten, stitch-bound volumes of her own poetry, each in an edition of one.

It was during a period of extreme productivity, in the early 1860s when she was in her 30s, that she began to confine herself to her family home in Amherst, Mass. There she took to wearing a kind of work uniform of simple house dresses. A single example, made of plain white cotton, survives. It is comfortably loose, easy to clean, and equipped with a capacious pocket for holding odds and ends.

Certain of those odds and ends, in the form of slips of paper, have attracted scholarly notice over the years, and close attention during the past decade. In the mid-1990s, while examining Dickinson material in the Amherst College Library, the literary historian Marta L. Werner came across a small, irregularly-shaped collage cut from recycled 19th-century envelopes and covered with writing in Dickinson’s unmistakably hieroglyphic script.

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Enchanted, Ms. Werner started a search for similar items in other collections and found dozens, long familiar to Dickinson experts but never examined as a group. Most were less elaborate than the collage. Some consisted of semi-intact envelopes that had been gently pried apart at the seams and flattened out. Others were fragments: torn-off corners of envelopes, detached flaps.

Whatever their configurations, the pocket-size papers shared one feature: sentences, stanzas and entire roughed-out poems pencil-written by Dickinson herself. Now all the known “envelope poems” — 52 — have been gathered into a book called “Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings,” published by New Directions and the art dealer Christine Burgin. Coffee table size, elegantly designed — it was originally issued in a deluxe format by Granary Books — it’s an impressive object. And although it includes essays by its editors, Ms. Werner and the artist Jen Bervin, and a preface by the poet  Susan Howe , it has been conceived primarily as a visual phenomenon.

Although a number of Dickinson manuscripts have been reproduced in print since the 1950s, this is the first book devoted to full-color, actual-size facsimiles of a specific body of her work. Each of the envelope pieces has been photographed on both sides and placed, silhouetted and centered, against a white ground, like paintings on a gallery wall. As a result, shapes rather than words are the first things that register. And even when the words start to come into focus, the book’s design encourages us to think of them first as components of visual objects.  Are they art? Sure. Why not? But they are something else — poetry — before that.

In a few cases, shapes and words appear related. A draft of poem beginning “The way/ Hope builds his/ House” is written on a piece of house-shaped paper: the top half on an envelope with its flap raised up, like a peaked roof. A poem that reads “One note from/One bird/Is better than/a million words” is squeezed into a wedge-shaped scrap — half of a flap? — that suggests a wing. Several poems, or parts of poems, dealing with themes of danger, death and madness are on envelope fragments in the shapes of arrows or grenades.

Dickinson chose words with acute deliberation. Conveyed in whatever medium, words are the fundamental matter of her art, what it is about, and what Dickinson was about. She was immersed in them, high on them. They came first. Getting them down came first.

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Practice Poem

I started Early – Took my Dog – (656)BY EMILY DICKINSON

I started Early – Took my Dog –And visited the Sea –

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The Mermaids in the BasementCame out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper FloorExtended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the TideWent past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my BeltAnd past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My ShoesWould overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –At me – The Sea withdrew –

Vocabulary:

Frigates: fast and highly maneuverable warships of the 18th and 19th centuries, used to escort other larger ships, or to patrol the coast and blockade harbors

Hempen Hands: strong, thick ropes made of hemp, used on ships

opon upon

Boddice bodice; an upper part of a woman’s dress, or a rigid, laced corset worn underneath clothing, covering the upper part of a woman’s body

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The Brain—is wider than the Sky— 1

The Brain—is wider than the Sky— 2

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For—put them side by side—The one the other will containWith ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea— 6For—hold them—Blue to Blue—The one the other will absorb—As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God— 10For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—And they will differ—if they do—As Syllable from Sound—

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The Soul has Bandaged moments - 1When too appalled to stir -She feels some ghastly Fright come up

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And stop to look at her -

Salute her, with long fingers - 5Caress her freezing hair -Sip, Goblin, from the very lipsThe Lover - hovered - o'er -Unworthy, that a thought so meanAccost a Theme - so - fair -

The soul has moments of escape - 11When bursting all the doors -She dances like a Bomb, abroad,And swings opon the Hours,

As do the Bee - delirious borne - 15Long Dungeoned from his Rose -Touch Liberty - then know no more -But Noon, and Paradise

The Soul's retaken moments - 19When, Felon led along,With shackles on the plumed feet,And staples, in the song,

The Horror welcomes her, again, 23These, are not brayed of Tongue -

#258

There's a certain Slant of light,  1

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Winter Afternoons – That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral Tunes – 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –  5We can find no scar, But internal difference – Where the Meanings, are – 

None may teach it – Any – 'Tis the seal Despair –  10An imperial affliction Sent us of the Air – 

When it comes, the Landscape listens – Shadows – hold their breath – When it goes, 'tis like the Distance  15On the look of Death –

#327

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Before I got my eye put out –  1I liked as well to see As other creatures, that have eyes – And know no other way – 

But were it told to me—Today-- 5That I might have the Sky For mine, I tell you that my Heart Would split, for size of me – 

The Meadows – mine – The Mountains – mine –  10All Forests – Stintless stars – As much of noon, as I could take – Between my finite eyes – 

The Motions of the Dipping Birds – The Morning’s Amber Road –  15For mine – to look at when I liked, The news would strike me dead – 

So safer – guess – with just my soul Upon the Window pane Where other creatures put their eyes –  20Incautious – of the Sun –

#670

21

One need not be a Chamber—to be Haunted—  1One need not be a House— The Brain has Corridors—surpassing Material Place—

Far safer, of a Midnight Meeting  5External Ghost Than its interior Confronting— That Cooler Host.

Far safer, through an Abbey gallop, The Stones a'chase—  10Than Unarmed, one's a'self encounter— In lonesome Place—

Ourself behind ourself, concealed— Should startle most— Assassin hid in our Apartment  15Be Horror's least.

The Body—borrows a Revolver— He bolts the Door— O'erlooking a superior spectre— Or More— 20

#254

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“Hope” is the thing with feathers -- 1That perches in the soul -- And sings the tune without the words -- And never stops-- at all --

And sweetest-- in the Gale --is heard -- 5And sore must be the storm --That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm --

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -- And on the strangest Sea -- 10Yet --never -- in Extremity, It asked a crumb -- of Me.

#303

23

The Soul selects her own Society -- 1Then -- shuts the Door --To her divine Majority --Present no more --

Unmoved -- she notes the Chariots -- pausing -- 5At her low Gate --Unmoved -- an Emperor be kneelingUpon her Mat --

I've known her -- from an ample nation --Choose One -- 10Then -- close the Valves of her attention --Like Stone --

# 280

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I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, 1And Mourners to and froKept treading --treading --till it seemed That Sense was breaking through --

And when they all were seated, 5A Service, like a Drum --Kept beating --beating --till I thought My mind was going numb --

And then I heard them lift a BoxAnd creak across my Soul 10With those same Boots of Lead, again,Then Space -- began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell, And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race, 15Wrecked, solitary, here --

And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down -- And hit a World, at every plunge, And Finished knowing -- then -- 20

#511

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If you were coming in the Fall, 1I’d brush the summer byWith half a smile, and half a spurn,As Housewives do, a Fly.

If I could see you in a year, 5I’d wind the months in balls—And put them each in separate Drawers,For fear the numbers fuse—

If only Centuries, delayed,I’d count them on my Hand, 10Subtracting, till my fingers droppedInto Van Dieman’s Land.

If certain, when this life was out—That yours and mine, should beI’d toss it yonder, like a Rind, 15And take Eternity—

But, now, uncertain of the lengthOf this, that is between,It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—That will not state—its sting. 20

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