Emily Dickenson

[Poetrygirl]

Non-disputable genius in poetry.

[Poetrygirl]

Amazing in her works Emily Dickenson has wrote so many poems in her lifetime including: Im nobody! Who are you?, Success, etc...

[PeterL]

If you like Emily's poetry, then you might also like Sufi poetry and Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam's poems.

[cafolini]

There occur no geniuses except in the imagination and as exaggeration, but she was one of the best.

[Ecurb]

Anyone interested in Emily Dickinson should read “Lives like Loaded Guns” by Lyndall Gordon. It chronicles Emily’s life, and the family feud between Emily’s sister-in-law (and best friend, and possible lover, Susan) and her rival, Emily’s brother’s mistress (Mabel Loomis Todd). Loomis Todd was brilliant herself, and was instrumental in recognizing Emily's genius and editing her poems. Gordon also suggests that Dickinson may have suffered from epilepsy, which could explain her reclusive life. The evidence includes both pharmacy orders from the 19th century, and literary references in the poems.

It’s a great story, and the title derives from this Dickinson masterpiece:

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

[Gladys]

The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

The Owner, I presume, is the poet's genuine vocation, her raison d'etre?

[Ecurb]

I don't know who "the Owner" is. It could be God. "The Master" appears in other Emily Dickinson poems, and some critics have suggested it refers to a real-life lover, although Gordon pooh-poohs the notion. I like your interpretation, though. The loaded gun doesn't do what it's supposed to do until identified and carried away by the Owner. Any more ideas? (I'm no expert on Dickinson -- I just like her poems, and someone gave me the Gordon book for Christmas a couple of years back.)

[Poetrygirl]

I will make sure to read "Lives like Loaded Guns" it sounds very interesting.

[Gladys]

The loaded gun doesn't do what it's supposed to do until identified and carried away by the Owner.

With old age, poetic output and inclination must fade and die. But the final line of the poem makes my head spin!


Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

[Ecurb]

Dickinson (from what I've read, and, again, I'm not expert) lost her genius as she aged, and her later poems are not among her best. I have no idea how old she was when she wrote "Loaded Gun".

Adrienne Rich wrote of the poem, “...I think it is a poem about possession by the daemon, about the dangers and risks of such possession if you are a woman, about the knowledge that power in a woman can seem destructive, and that you cannot live without the daemon once it has possessed you. . . .”

One way of looking at the poem is this: the “gun” is language. The “owner” or “master” is Emily herself. Her poetic genius had stood in the corner like a loaded gun until the “master” took it hunting in the “sovereign woods”, where it echoed from the mountains.

At night, the loaded gun (the poems) “guard my Master’s head” (in other words, she falls asleep repeating the poems to herself). The gun shoots the master’s enemies, and the poetic bullets live longer than the master him(her)self.

Of course there are many other possible interpretations. I love the power of the almost rhymes: time / thumb; head /shared; glow / through.

[Ecurb]

This thread has started me thinking (for me, a rare event) about Emily Dickinson. I remembered this poem:

Essential oils are wrung:
The attar from the rose
Is not expressed by suns alone,
It is the gift of screws.

The general rose decays;
But this, in lady’s drawer,
Makes summer when the lady lies
In ceaseless rosemary.

I have been familiar with the poem, but thinking about “Loaded Gun” seems to suggest new implications for it. Like the gun, the screws which express the attar from the rose are mechanical. Is Emily suggesting that, no, her poems are not expressions of innate genius? Instead, they are machine-crafted like a gun, or mechanically expressed, like the attar.

[Gladys]

I have been familiar with the poem, but thinking about “Loaded Gun” seems to suggest new implications for it. Like the gun, the screws which express the attar from the rose are mechanical. Is Emily suggesting that, no, her poems are not expressions of innate genius? Instead, they are machine-crafted like a gun, or mechanically expressed, like the attar.

I'm now inclined to take the owner to be poetic inspiration or soul, and the loaded gun to be untapped poetic talent or skill. The gun is fired hunting in the woods (creating poetry from the world around her), used to guard the owner/master through the night (keeping her inspiration healthy), and fired to ensure the master thrives (fending off attacks on her poetic soul). Poetic inspiration must one day die in the poet, but will live on in her poetry. Isn't the same idea present is the following verse where the rose is roughly equivalent to the loaded gun, and "this" (i.e. essential oils) denote her poetry that outlives the poet?


The general rose decays;
But this, in lady’s drawer,
Makes summer when the lady lies
In ceaseless rosemary.

In the final verse of My Life had stood, I presume the power to kill refers back to the hunted doe (the poet's subject) and protection of the master. Perhaps the power to die-- has nothing to do with the loaded gun, but refers to control over when, where and how the poet dies. Barring suicide, none of us has much control over our ultimate demise, our mortality.