The Last of My Three Possibles

I read through the entirety of the Franklin edition, and I found that there was a subject that didn't get tons of attention like "Heaven," but enough to be interesting. The subject of the abyss. Its a mysterious one, but I like mysteriousness. Best? Not as good? Tell me!

One more thing

Also, wizards. Emily mentions the word wizard two times, to my best memory. I think it would be rad to see how many time this word comes up. It doesn't have to be wizard, it could be sorcerer, whatever. I think this would be an interesting paper, perhaps even more so than the paper about angels. Though there's probably a lot less to go on with wizards. Comment and tell me what you think!

I come to this post bearing actual ideas. I think that the next essay I write will be about something very prevalent in the works of Emily Dickinson, the supernatural. This is merely an initial idea, so I guess its a bit misleading to use the word "ideas." The supernatural subject I think is most interesting is her treatment of angels. They are sometimes good, sometimes ambivalent, and most interestingly, sometimes evil. However, since she treats science a specific way, no matter how the angels behave will be interesting, and will offer an in depth perspective towards the author.

Creative project

I guess its a little too late to ask this, but I have a question about my creative project for my followers. Does a creative project based on frequent words used by Emily Dickinson, parodying the words and deprecating them with definitions, sound too harsh? I've already written this, but give me your feedback on this idea.

An attempt at Dickinson

Here is a poem I wrote. Its a poem based off of Dickinson's door imagery, an image that appealed to me wherever she wrote it. Tell me what you think!

The Door stood staring
so enter, if you will
the portal next to my cold hand
or don't, it doesn't matter

I know you will be back
sometime in your life

When the golden day
has ended and gone away
when the purplish tinge
has faded to obsidian
when your hands are pale ghosts
horrifyingly swirling, shrieking
now you'll seek that very aperture

Cool, calming, roughly ornate
and you will magnetize yourself

Steel unto the knob
and open the thing
with a rictus of terror.
when all you see past that door
is an upturned basket
shining in ink

Paper topics

From now on, I'll use some posts to talk about the paper I'm eventually going to write. I'm thinking about something overarching in Emily's work, like her perception of death and life. There's not much content here, but as I go on, feel free to comment.

Poem of the Day for 10/19/09

Some of you may notice that this post nearly coincides my last post, separated by only a few minutes. I am on such a writing binge now that I couldn't bear not to write about fascicle 20. Since my last post was on the fascicle's final poem, I decided to give the POTD to the fascicle's first poem.

I took one Draught of Life -
I'll tell you what I paid -
Precisely an existence -
The market price, they said.

They weighed me, Dust by Dust -
They balanced Film with Film,
They handed me my Being's worth -
A single Dram of Heaven!

Here we see, yet again, a Death poem. In fact, the entire action of the poem takes place after Emily has died, and is being judged. Though this is not your daddy's "pearly gates" poem, but a bizarre comparison of Emily's soul and a butcher's marketplace, or something. They, whoever that is, weigh her, balance the weight, and stick her with a "market price." This gives us a very atypical portrayal of judgement, as well as a disturbing one. She basically pays for her life, after death, with existence. All they give her back, in exchange for her "Being," is a little tiny bit of Heaven, expressed through the old-timey word "Dram." Perhaps this is Emily expressing anger, or outrage at what she finds existence to be.