Emily Dickinson in the age of social media…
In our age, where so many people feel the need to be defined by their social media likes and dislikes, there has also been a surge of interest in the reclusive life and poetry of Emily Dickinson (1836-88). Because of these anomalous associations, I can’t help wondering what Emily would say about Facebook or Twitter, as she was not interested in drawing much attention to herself. Of the more than eighteen hundred unpublished poems she wrote in her lifetime, one of the most interesting is the untitled poem we now call, I’m Nobody:
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!
Not titling her poems was just one way to focus readers on trying to understand her poems rather to first pre-judge them by the reputation of the author or their titles. There is also the question of whether she even wanted to have her poems ever seen by readers. Why did she ask her sister to destroy her poems after she died? Perhaps she assumed that since no one would publish them in her lifetime; but, maybe they would be discovered, appreciated, and published in a more enlightened era. She did not try to hide them but left them in bundles scattered about her house and in letters, where they were first discovered by her sister Lavinia after Emily died. Rather than give in to Emily’s wishes, Lavinia gave the first batch of discovered poems to her friend, Mabel Loomis Todd. With the help of the noted publisher, Thomas Wentworth Higgins, they over-edited, then published the first partial collection of Dickinson’s works in 1890.
Emily Dickinson now trending on Facebook…
No one can say for sure whether Emily would participate in social media. Most likely, she would not be seeking Likes, but perhaps these sites would give her a method of bringing attention to her poems. thus precluding her from having to submit them and have them rejected for publication by many editors. In this series of blogs, I intend to explore the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson, and why she has become a trending subject close to 150 years after she wrote her last poem. For this journey, I got the help of several of the smartest friends I know.
Osher LLI Poetry Workshop at the University of Richmond…
In the summer of 2021, I had the pleasure of leading four two-hour-long sessions of an Emily Dickinson Poetry workshop at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Richmond. This international program has been established for the enrichment of adults “age 50 and better.” Perhaps it is ironic that Emily chose to virtually isolate herself in her father’s home in Amherst Massachusetts for most of her adult life, and many of us who were studying her life and works had been forced to isolate ourselves in our homes for more than a year due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Consequently, the 26 people who enrolled in the workshop were required to register for an online Zoom workshop, where they could participate in the comfort and seclusion of their homes. Many of those who signed up had also been participating in my Osher literature classes for the last 4-5 years and were, in my opinion, the most avid Osher literary enthusiasts.
I decided to structure the class like a graduate seminar I had attended in an MA in English program at Virginia Commonwealth University in Gregory Donavan’s poetry class. First, I covered the basic autobiographical details of Emily’s life, using the book, The Life of Emily Dickinson: My Wars Are Laid to Waste in Books by Alfred Habegger (2001).
Next, I wanted to help my literature students to understand some of the most common terms of poetry, I culled those definitions and examples from several of the sites commonly found on the web. This information was later useful when we were discussing the clever and often non-traditional ways that Emily used those poetic devices.
How to decipher Emily’s original hand-written poems?
One problem I encountered right away was that there are different versions of her poems that have been published over time. She did not use a typewriter or computer to write like we do today. So, her handwriting has caused much speculation guessing about her intended word choices and punctuations. These were also difficult to decipher due to her unique stylized handwriting. Her poetic forms also varied from most of the standard poetry of her era. They are most recognized by the overuse of hyphens in her work and for slant rhyming, where pairs had only had partial rhyming sounds. Those reviewing or attempting to edit her poems, including her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert, Mabel Todd Loomis, and Higginson sometimes also found several versions of the same poems. Adding to these issues, they chose to re-punctuate them in standard forms and made convenient word substitutions, which they erroneously believed would be more aesthetically pleasing or had better meter or rhyming attributes than her original forms.
Four major themes of Dickinson’s poetry…
The first complete and unchanged version of her poems was published in 1955 by scholar, Thomas H. Johnson. As I wanted my workshop participants to have access to a commonly reputable edition of her poems, I recommended and used the accessible Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson by Barnes & Noble Press (2003). The B&N series also suggested the four major themes of her poems that I used in my workshop: Life, Love, Nature, and Time & Eternity. Participants quickly noted that her poetry frequently had overlapping themes. For example, her poem now titled, “Some keep the sabbath by going to church” could have comfortably fit in either the nature or in the time & eternity categories.
Participants were invited to submit original or other inspired poems or works of art…
To make this offering more like a graduate poetry workshop, I asked the participants to submit original poetry or other works inspired by the four major themes of Dickinson’s work, Then, I asked them to submit those to me via email so that I could incorporate them into MS PowerPoint Presentations for the participants to view and discuss. I was pleased by the submissions I received. These included not only examples of poetry, but photographs, art, and works from nature. I intend to have several Litchatte entries on this workshop, including one on how Emily might have interacted with Facebook, and another showing the clever and non-traditional ways she used poetic literary devices. In subsequent blogs, I will discuss poems from the themes of Emily’s poems, and highlight some of the works offered by the workshop participants.
Interact with Litchatte and Editor…
I welcome readers of this blog to interact by submitting their favorite original or other works inspired by Emily Dickenson in the dialogue box under this blog. I will personally respond to your comment and promise not to try to sell you any products.
Emily Dickinson Image from Boston Review.net
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Murray Ellison, Litchatte Chief Editor, received a Master’s in English Literature from Virginia Commonwealth University and a Doctorate in Education at Virginia Tech. He is married and has three adult daughters and a granddaughter! He ‘retired’ as the Director of Community Corrections for the Virginia Department of Correctional Education in 2009. His MA thesis, on Edgar Allan Poe and 19th-Century Science, was published in 2015. He founded Litchatte.com in 2016 and is Chief Editor. He is the Outreach Coordinator for the First Mennonite Church of Richmond and also contributes to music there. He is an editor for the International Correctional Education Journal and a Co-Editor of Mystic Verses(2016) by Shambhushivananda. He’s a volunteer tour guide for the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond Virginia. For a decade, he has been teaching literature and music classes for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Richmond, LLI Chesterfield, and The Shepherd’s Center Open University. When tapped, he teaches adjunct English and writing classes at Richard Bland College of William & Mary College.
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