Lit On Fire...My Favorite Poet, Emily

Ella, at Real Toads, has asked us to write or tell about that poet and poem which first sparked a love of poetry in us. For me, that would be "I Cannot Live With You", by Emily Dickinson. I have it featured on a stand-alone page here at Word Garden.

It was in high school English that we studied this poem, and it took my breath away then and still does today. At the time that I first read it, there were things that I wanted really badly in my life, and I saw others having those things without even trying. I wondered, "Why is the deck stacked? Why am I denied what I want so much?" It came as a revelation to teenage me, that someone else had felt the same way, and written it down so passionately. It was one of those moments when a life turns, and I have loved poetry ever since.

As for Emily, she remains my favorite poet. No pale fraidycat, she. First, she was a redhead. 

redhead!






She had the guts to say, at college, in a time and place where belief was a given, that she was not sure she believed in God, though her subsequent poetry is full of spiritual questioning. She wrote in a style that defied poetic conventions of the time, in both form and content. And she loved another woman...her brother's wife, Susan Huntington Dickinson, who lived next door at The Evergreens. What exquisite torment that must have been! Her heart's desire so close, and yet as removed as the moon. That pain is all through "I Cannot Live With You." (To read Emily's letters to Susan--often passed by hand or through servants--read the excellent book "Open Me Carefully".)

I had the good fortune to visit the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, in August of 2007. I stood in the very room she composed in, and saw where she kept all her poems. I felt her there, in a personal way that floored me. I sat outside in the garden for a long time after. I felt that she knew I was there, and welcomed me. I felt her encouragement of my work. It was no subtle thing...she was there and she spoke to me. I'll never forget it.

I wrote a poem about it, a little while after returning home. Here it is:

"August"

Emily,
Were you waiting for me?
Did you find me in your garden,
And speak my secret name?
We are wicks
Twinly lit;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you press an oak leaf to your lips?
Wishing for her lips
That never softly came?
We are women
Who burn for women;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

Emily,
Did you see me?
Another bound in books
That fair divinity contain?
We ache for night
And fever bright;
Darling, we hold
The flame.

________