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The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

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Nearly everyone who's had a brush with American lit knows the story of Emily Dickinson - her poetry unpublished in her lifetime, and then even after her death, her verses seeing the light of day only after having been "improved" on by an editor who found her rhymes imperfect and her meter "spasmodic." He even went so far as to make her metaphors "sensible." The fact is, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, to whom Dickinson had sent her poems, was a representative of the poetic establishment, and as with all artistic establishments then and now, was too rigid in his thinking and too impoverished in his imagination to comprehend a new voice of genius. As Editor Thomas H. Johnson writes in his terse but very instructive Introduction, "He was trying to measure a cube by the rules of plane geometry."

Of course other women of literature suffered something similar during the nineteenth century. What I wonder is, who is being misread, ignored or denied today?

Anyway, suffice it to say that this IS the definitive one-volume collection of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. It includes all the 1,775 poems that she wrote in her lifetime, and they are presented here just as she wrote them with only some minor corrections of obvious misspellings or misplaced apostrophes. Johnson has retained the sometimes "capricious" capitalization, and preserved the famous dashes.

There is a subject index, which I found useful, and an index of first lines, which is invaluable.

Dickinson can be playful...

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!

...she can be sarcastic...

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see -
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.

[Alas, the Amazon.com editor does not support italics. The words "see" and "Microscopes" are italicized above, and it really does make a difference!]

...and grave...

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -

...and observant...

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it's true -
Men do not sham Convulsion,
Nor simulate, a Throe -

...and profound...

Love reckons by itself - alone -
"As large as I" - relate the Sun
to One who never felt it blaze -
Itself is all the like it has -

..and desperate...

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

...and self aware...

I meant to have but modest needs -
Such as Content - and Heaven -
Within my income - these could lie
And Life and I - keep even -

...and even radical...

Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you're straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -

...and much more.

She is a poet of strikingly apt and totally original phrases imbued with a deep resonance of thought and observation, especially on her favorite subjects, life, death and love. She can be cryptic and her references and allusions are sometimes too private for us to catch. She can also be amazingly terse. But the intensity of her experience and the "Zero at the Bone" emotion displayed in this, her "letter to the World/That never wrote to me -" are second to none in the world of letters. Unlike Shakespeare, who mastered the psychology of people in places high and low, Dickinson mastered only her own psychology, and yet through that we can see, as in a mirror, ourselves.

I have 1000 words to tell what Dickinson means to me, an impossible task I gladly take up. I'd like to respond to others on this page. I once called Dickinson the "patron saint of lonely people everywhere," so I can identify with what one person said about teenage shut-ins. And I don't blame the person who snubbed her for not leaving a name--I'd be embarrassed to as well. Emily egotistical? The poet who wrote, "I'm nobody"? Wow. I love Dickinson's work so much because her vision of life is so fully her own, so at odds with the views of those around her. Can you imagine knowing you are the most brilliant lyric poet of your time (Whitman was more an epic or narrative poet), and knowing no one understood you? It's like trying to communicate in a foreign language that only you know. In fact, that is exactly what she did--she explodes the syntax, vocabulary, and syllabication of English and transforms it into her own private means of communication. She demands that we meet her on her ground. True, reading her work is not "fun"--there's too much pain and burning beauty in it to be an easy ride. She is not for everyone--only for those who see that life's disappointments both destroy and liberate us at the same time: comparing human hurts to trees destroyed by nature's forces, she says (in poem 314), "We--who have the Souls-- / Die oftener--Not so vitally--." Those may be the finest lines any poet ever wrote in English.

I can't think of "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson" as simply a volume of poetry. Rather, it seems to me to be the uninhibited testament of a latter-day prophetess; it reads like the visions of a rare mind who pierced through the prisons of convention, and who dared to record what she perceived.

Forget any preconceptions you may have had about Dickinson, and start reading the book. As a whole, this collection is a stunning exploration of many themes and images: the world of nature, metaphysics, human emotion, and more. And throughout, these short verses radiate with psychological insight.

And if you read with the attentiveness that these poems deserve, you will discover many treasures. I have been a particular fan of Dickinson's "blasphemous" verses, in which she deconstructs the conventions of mainstream religiosity, and of her erotic poems, which celebrate the sensuous delights of the human and nonhuman worlds. Check out such gems as #324 ("Some keep the Sabbath going to Church-- / I keep it, staying at Home") or #339 ("My Cactus--splits her Beard / To show her throat"). Dickinson is full of surprises, all written in a style that is stunning and subtly seductive.

Dickinson writes, "Exhilaration--is within-- / There can no Outer Wine / So royally intoxicate / As that diviner Brand" (#383). But if you must rely on an "Outer Wine," dip into the "Complete Poems" and get high on Emily. It's an addiction that's good for you.

Only when I started a unit on Emily Dickinson did I notice discrepancies between various published versions of her poems. For example, some student anthologies preserved her quirky capitalizations, others didn't. One day a student reading from her own book said her version of "The Soul selects her own Society" had an entirely different verb in the fourth line. It was then I discovered that Dickinson's editors had betrayed her by "correcting" her grammar and diction. That very afternoon I ordered this book which restores her poems to their original and better state. I should add the book is beautifully printed, solidly bound, and an excellent value.

So, here's the deal, boys and girls. There are two versions of the reading edition of Emily Dickinson's poems that are usable. And by usable, I mean that the texts (note the work "texts") are what Emily Dickinson wanted the texts to be. The first version is, as I read the description of the volume in question, is the Thomas H. Johnson text. Now, friends, (excuse me if I seem patronizing, but as a Dickinson scholar, long of tooth, and weary of stupidity, I have my prejudices), Johnson's text has been a fully acceptable and competent version since it was published as the authoritative Dickinson in 1955 (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press issued the variorum, three volume version of all the authoritative poems in the same year.) This is cool. The newest version of Emily Dickinson poems was edited by R.W. Franklin, and the readers' edition was published in 1999. There is also a new variorum edition published by Belknap Press of Harvard and edited by Franklin. So. I am boring you with all of this detail to tell you that the Johnson texts are good texts. If you are serious about Dickinson--meaning if you actually care about what she wrote on the page--the Johnson and the Franklin will give accurate texts. F.W. Franklin has been working on details where Johnson lacked insight since the '60's. He knows whereof he speaks, and he has done his utmost to reassemble Ms. Dickinson's original manuscripts in their proper order. Previous versions of the poems--those before Johnson and Franklin--regularized rhyme and otherwise abrogated the accuracy of the poems. They were cleaned up according to late 19th century standards, and the texts--despite editorial comments to the contrary--are corrupt. That means that they are inaccurate. So, dear friends, if you want Emily Dickinson with accuracy--despite the rapturous testimony of some reviewers--go for the Johnson or Franklin texts. The others are mostly fraudulent. And in case you actually care, my credentials are respectable, and I don't work for a publisher. Use Johnson if you have him with confidence. Franklin is most current and should be impeccable. Other texts, including some that are in supposedly respectable American literature anthologies, may be suspect. (One of the most respectable uses texts that derive from late 19th century texts that were declared corrupt some 40 years ago.) So--hope this is of some use.

As a few have stated already, a lot of Emily Dickinson's poems appear simple on the surface. Don't let the simplicity or brevity fool you, boiling underneath the metaphors of Dickinson's poems are some of the most beautiful visions I've ever read. Intelligent, thoughtful..haunting are all words I'd use to describe her poems. She has quickly vaulted to the top of the list of my favorite poets along with William Blake and Edgar Allan Poe.

And speaking of her poems, there are plenty. All of them in fact, in chronological order allowing the reader to see the progession in her poems. This is a great book at a great price to be able to own all she has written.

Since her poems have no titles, there are two invaluable features included at the back to help aid the search for the desired poem. One is an alphabetical subject index, with words and lines linked to poems with which they belong. The other index includes the first lines of all 1775 poems.

An excellent all around souce for all your Emily Dickinson needs. Enjoy.

There's no need for me to comment on Emily Dickinson, or her phenomenal poetry that is the content of this book. It will speak for itself. What I will comment on is the authenticity of this book compared to others in that this book preserves Emily's poetry the way it was, with all the "mad" dashes, to convey the uncontainable element within her that she was only able to release through her poetry. The author is the primary researcher of Emily's poems and has thoroughly researched the world to compile the collection pretty much as the world knows it, and he has presented it in this book in full. If you are to have a collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry, it should be this one. No questions about it!

This is the standard and authoritative collected edition of Emily Dickinson's poems. It is a book that will stay with you for the rest of your life. I can think of no finer writer of poetry in English who manages to invest so short and simple a construction - no more than a couple of lines in some cases - with such emotional force. I say 'simple', but her poems are simple only in a deceptive sense. An unfinished poem like "A letter is a joy of earth/ It is denied the gods -" (that's the whole poem) says more about the joy of constructing prose than any number of effusive efforts from the Romantics.

Miss Dickinson has suffered from having been appropriated by the rather dreary crowd of 'cultural critics' who cannot grasp that a work of art tells us primarily not about the social mores of the time it was written in but about the human spirit. She is especially vulnerable to this sort of irrelevant sophistry, having lived as a recluse for much of her life and thus being ripe for 'interpretation' that is nothing more than a recitation of modern political sensibilities. That's a shame, and it certainly shouldn't put you off reading her. So far as I'm concerned, there is no one - not even Shakespeare, not even Jane Austen or Dickens - whom I read more frequently, and with greater pleasure and benefit.

I couldn't always appreciate Dickenson and perhaps you may not yet be ready to appreciate her work. I can't comment on how it feels to be touched by her because it defies description and rather than try, I would suggest you give her a read. If her metaphor is not lost on you, you will be glad you made the effort. Also, spring for the extra $7 to get the hardcover... if it doesn't speak to you today, tuck it away on a shelf and someday you'll pick it up and wonder why you let it sit for so long...

Emily Dickinson is easily my favorite poet. It was unfortunate that she was essentially undiscovered during her lifetime. This may remind us of one of her poems:

----- 441

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me --
The simple News that Nature told --
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see --
For love of Her -- Sweet -- countrymen --
Judge tenderly -- of Me

-----

However, I think this poem is a more likely biography and more personal poem:

----- 404

How many Flowers fail in Wood --
Or perish from the Hill --
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful --

How many cast a nameless Pod
Upon the nearest Breeze --
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight --
It bear to Other Eyes --

-----

There are 1775 poems in all, but the following poem is my favorite. It is also on display in her house in Amherst (MA) in various renditions. Make sure to visit there if you are ever in the area.

----- 67

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated -- dying --
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

-----

There are so many fantastic poems that I wish I could list them all. I did type them all (!) in once for my personal use and that has been of great benefit. However, I still keep this book that is marked with my own notes. A real treasure.