/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14323425]

It's Emily Dickinson's birthday today /lit/! Post your favourite poems by her!

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 -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -

[Anonymous No.14323460]

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –

only poem I've read by her. I like sylvia better anyways

[Anonymous No.14323470]

Poo Poo Pee Pee
In my bum
Poo Poo Pee Pee
In my hair
Poo Poo Pee Pee
On the floor
Poo Poo Pee Pee
Everywhere!

[Anonymous No.14323548]

>>14323470
Are you sure that's not an Allen Ginsberg poem?

[Anonymous No.14323760]

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

[Anonymous No.14323854]

>>14323425
>Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, to even leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most friendships between her and others depended entirely upon correspondence
one of us! one of us!

[Anonymous No.14323936]

>>14323460

What the HELL is going on with those rhymes?

[Anonymous No.14324000]

>>14323760
why the fuck you tryina rhyme fro and through? Bad writing

[Anonymous No.14324055]

>>14323470
I'm unfamiliar with that part of her work, though I must say, I'm deeply moved!

[Anonymous No.14324066]

>>14324055
god, this is the kind of shit that made people think her poems were good enough to affect culture. pathetic.

[Anonymous No.14324095]

>>14324000
Because old American Protestant hymns did that and she was emulating their rhythm and rhyme schemes

[Anonymous No.14324186]

Emily time travels to the future to acquire a sybian:

Since I could not to at all to come,
I went away in time and got a sybian -
Which when I splayed myself upon,
Went further still 'til I was gone -

Too lazy to finish, feel free to contribute. Pic unrelated.

[Anonymous No.14324345]

>>14323425
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

[Anonymous No.14324369]

>>14323425
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!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

how dreary to be somebody

[Anonymous No.14324416]

>>14323425
Glee! the great storm is over!
Four have recovered the land;
Forty gone down together
Into the boiling sand.

Ring, for the scant salvation!
Toll, for the bonnie souls, —
Neighbor and friend and bridegroom,
Spinning upon the shoals!

How they will tell the shipwreck
When winter shakes the door,
Till the children ask, "But the forty?
Did they come back no more?"

Then a silence suffuses the story,
And a softness the teller's eye;
And the children no further question,
And only the waves reply.

[Anonymous No.14324429]

>>14323425
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 Sovreign 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
Opon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it’s 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 -

[Anonymous No.14324534]

>>14324186
>>14324345

I guess this works too...

[Anonymous No.14325430]

>>14323425
Her and Whitman are the root of American poetics. Would anyone consider them to be apart of the Transcendentalist movement? Maybe Whitman?

[Anonymous No.14325502]

>>14325430
I love how completely different they are, the big loud public poet with his endless free verse and the recluse with her jewel-like short rhymed poems.
Whitman was endorsed by Emerson and him or someone else called him a cross between a Transcendentalist and Bowery fireman. Emily certainly would have been exposed to the movement as part of an educated household living in Massachusetts.

[Anonymous No.14326489]

>>14325502
It's funny how you can look at any American poet and follow their poetics to either Whitman or Dickinson. Funny enough, I've heard John Ashbery say that Dickinson was a favourite of his, even though his poetics are completely different.

[Anonymous No.14326746]

>i must go in. the fog is rising.

[Anonymous No.14327717]

Always loved this one -

There is a solitude of space
A solitude of sea
A solitude of death, but these
Society shall be
Compared with that profounder site
That polar privacy
A soul admitted to itself —
Finite infinity.

And this, so simple and truthful, with barely any words -

Candor — my tepid friend —
Come not to play with me —
The Myrrhs, and Mochas, of the Mind
Are its iniquity —