Poems (Shambhala Pocket Classics) [Paperback]

Emily Dickinson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Shambhala Pocket Classics | Publication Date: October 10, 1995

The more than one hundred poems presented here are some of Emily Dickinson's finest works. These unique and gemlike lyrics are pure distillations of profound feeling and great intellect. They contain a world of imagination, observation, and precisely articulated spiritual and emotional experience. Unlike other editions of Dickinson's work, which contain the public-domain versions of poems published shortly after her death, the ones reprinted here are reconstructions based on Dickinson's original manuscripts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

After Great Pain A Formal Feeling Comes
Again - His Voice Is At The Door
Apparently With No Surprise
Before I Got My Eye Put Out
Behind Me Dips Eternity
The Chariot
Chartless
Clock
Colloquy
Dare You See A Soul At The White Heat?
A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Despair And Fear
Did Our Best Moment Last
Dying
Evening (1)
Experience
Faith Is The Pierless Bridge
Fame Is The One That Does Not Stay
The Final Inch
The First Lesson
Funny - To Be A Century
Ghosts
Griefs
He Fumbles At Your Soul
The Heart Asks Pleasure First
Hope (1)
How Many Times These Low Feet Staggered
Hunger
I Can Wade Grief
I Cannot Live With You
I Could Not Prove The Years Had Feet
I Dwell In Possibility
I Envy The Seas Whereon He Rides
I Felt A Funeral In My Brain
I Know That He Exists
I Like A Look Of Agony
I Live With Him, I See His Face
I Meant To Find Her When I Came
I Never Lost As Much But Twice
I Reckon - When I Count At All
I See Thee Better In The Dark
I Think To Live May Be A Bliss
I'm 'wife' - I've Finished That
I'm Ceded - I've Stopped Being Theirs
I'm Nobody! Who Are You
I've Seen A Dying Eye
If Your Nerve, Deny You
In Shadow
In The Garden (1)
Intoxication
It Is Easy To Work When The Soul Is At Play
It Might Be Lonelier
It Sounded As If The Streets Were Running
It Was Not Death, For I Stood Up
It Would Have Starved A Gnat
Joy To Have Merited The Pain
The Lamp Burns Sure - Within
The Last Night That She Lived
The Life We Have Is Very Great
The Lost Thought
Low At My Problem Bending
Mine By The Right Of The White Election
The Missing All Prevented Me
Morning
Much Madness Is Divinest Sense
My Life Had Stood - A Loaded Gun
The Mystery Of Pain
No Man Can Compass A Despair
Of Course - I Prayed
One Dignity Delays For All
Our Lives Are Swiss
The Outer - From The Inner
Parting
The Pedigree Of Honey
Poem: 324
Publication Is The Auction
The Railway Train
The Reticent Volcano Keeps
Returning
Safe Despair It Is That Raves
Safe In Their Alabaster Chambers
Should You But Fail - At Sea
The Snake
A Solemn Thing It Was, I Said
The Soul Has Bandaged Moments
Split The Lark And You'll Find The Music
Struck, Was I, Not Yet By Lightning
Success
Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant
There Is A Pain - So Utter
There Is A Zone Whose Even Years
There's A Certain Slant Of Light
They Shut Me Up In Prose
This Consciousness That Is Aware
This Is My Letter To The World
A Thought Went Up My Mind To-day
'tis Not That Dying Hurts Us So
To Fight Aloud Is Very Brave
To Fill A Gap
To See The Summer Sky
Under The Light, Yet Under
We Grow Accustomed To The Dark
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
The Wind Took Up The Northern Things
Within My Garden, Rides A Bird
Wonder - Is Not Precisely Knowing
The World Is Not Conclusion
The Zeroes Taught Us Phosphorus
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

From the Inside Flap

The Everyman's Library Pocket Poets hardcover series is popular for its compact size and reasonable price which does not compromise content. Poems: Dickinson contains poems from The Poet's Art, The Works of Love, and Death and Resurrection, as well as an index of first lines. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (October 10, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570620997
• ISBN-13: 978-1570620997
• Product Dimensions: 3.1 x 0.5 x 4.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,464 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A prism which captures the white light of reality., June 22, 2001

By 

tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Poems (Shambhala Pocket Classics) (Paperback)

Just as a prism breaks up light into a band of colors - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet - and their infinite gradations, so do Emily Dickinson's poems become, as it were, a prism which captures the white light of reality, a reality which as it flows through the prism of her poem explodes into a multiplicity of meanings.

It is the rich suggestiveness of her poems, a suggestiveness which generates an incredible range of meanings, that prevents us from ever being able to say (to continue the metaphor) that a given poem is 'about red' or 'about blue,' because her poems, as US critic Robert Weisbuch has observed, are in fact about everything. This is what makes her so unique, and this is why she appeals to every kind of reader, and even to children.

The present book, which has been edited by Brenda Hillman, gives us accurate texts of the poems in a 150-page selection taken from the authoritative variorum edition of Thomas H. Johnson, the well-known Dickinson scholar who worked many years to establish the correct texts.

The book is beautifully printed in two-colors on excellent paper, and in a tiny format which is perfect for the pocket. It would in fact make a very nice gift. You'd be making a gift of poetry which is one of the wonders of the world.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Poetry in almost good editions, March 9, 2007

By 

Carmen Valdez (Mexico City, MX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Dickinson: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

This could be one of the best editions ever to be found for Dickinson's verse, if the editors had not choosed to arrange the poems thematically, rather than chronologically, as the "Complete poems" editors did. The book is divided into three sections, each one of them related to a specific topic: the poet's art, the works of love, death and resurrection. But the numeration is different from other editions, which makes it difficult to use in class, or to discuss in a scholar environment. However, as a home book it is perfect.
Some really important poems are not included, such as "Wild nights" or "there's a certain slant of light", although the selection is quite good in general.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Do The Greatest Poets Write About Death?, April 26, 2006

By 

Katherine Graham "Katherine Graham" (Sparta, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dickinson: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets) (Hardcover)

Admittedly, I am taking a rather narrow view of America's greatest poet here. But the nub of the matter is this: poets, who have been revered historically (since Biblical times) by Kings, Queens, and the people were truly 'the celebrities' of their day. Frankly, I'd rather be in the company with the master poets than our current celebs but that's just a personal preference. The death issue is what makes most poets scale heights few can only imagine. For the poet's essential goal in any age is to trancend the world. That leads them to a vista where wisdom, courage, truth, and justice reside. Emily Dickinson's poetry as presented in this book (& the many pricelss others Amazon.com has for sale) - does just that. So be it.