The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition

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The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition

by Emily Dickinson, R.W. Franklin (Editor)

4.19 of 5 stars 4.19 · rating details · 35,363 ratings · 534 reviews

Emily Dickinson, poet of the interior life, imagined words/swords, hurling barbed syllables/piercing. Nothing about her adult appearance or habitation revealed such a militant soul. Only poems, written quietly in a room of her own, often hand-stitched in small volumes, then hidden in a drawer, revealed her true self. She did not live in time but in universals--an acute, se...more

Paperback, 690 pages

Published October 1st 2005 by Belknap Press (first published 1924)

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Apr 01, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american-literature, women-voices, 19th-century, nature, death, religion

“To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility—“ (#1058 )

I went to Amherst, Massachusetts, in search of a prophetess. I found a poet of close observation, of quiet, and of solitude. I gravitate towards cheerful Walt Whitman because I celebrate his optimism, enthusiasm, loud exuberance, and sacrificial service to others. In Emily, I found his temperamental opposite.

So Whitman is my poetic prophet of the gregarious macro; Emily is my prophet of the shy micro. Together they are the two lungs of Ameri...more “To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility—“ (#1058 )

I went to Amherst, Massachusetts, in search of a prophetess. I found a poet of close observation, of quiet, and of solitude. I gravitate towards cheerful Walt Whitman because I celebrate his optimism, enthusiasm, loud exuberance, and sacrificial service to others. In Emily, I found his temperamental opposite.

So Whitman is my poetic prophet of the gregarious macro; Emily is my prophet of the shy micro. Together they are the two lungs of American poetry. I need both to breathe deeply.

Emily Dickinson was a recluse who did not seek or need the affirmation of others. She cherished her solitude and rarely left her lifelong home. After her death, her family discovered 1775 poems, only a handful of which had been published. So that’s what she was doing all those years! Because we have her poems, it is possible that we know her interior life better than her own family and neighbors did.

While the American Civil War raged and Whitman held the hands of the dying in army hospitals, Emily retreated into her house and garden where she watched and scribbled. I used to think she came off poorly in comparison to Whitman, but then I noticed that the majority of her poems are about death. In her own way, she holds our hands as we get ready to face our own deaths. She knew what she was doing. She did her part. The Flower accepted responsibility.

Emily described herself as an “inebriate of air;” “a debauchee of dew;” “a nobody;” “a Sovereign with a crumb,” and, over her tiny realm, the monarch reigned supreme and observed her subjects: summer; bees; butterflies, birds; spiders; flowers; and flies.

In many poems, she addresses questions of God, death, and immortality. Despite the repetition of subject matter, Emily has startling insights and original observations, though her meaning may be inscrutable and contradictory. Such is life. Her attitude seems skeptical and religious at the same time. She punctuated her poems (and her life) with strange dashes and eccentric capitalization with no apparent reason that I can puzzle out.

Emily was prolific. During the years 1862 and 1863, as the bloodiest battles of the war raged, she wrote at an astounding pace--nearly a poem a day. She wrote as one touched by fire, as if she had to pour her words onto paper before the sabers of night massacred the day’s sun.

So we have an anomalous flower of profound responsibility. This hermit exercised incomparable influence on world literature, without publishing and without leaving her room. When the names of the generals of that woeful war are forgotten, the poems of Emily Dickinson will still be read. Her backyard was the cosmos. While staying home, she has become what she sought to be-- “a citizen of Eternity.”

March 30, 2013(less)

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May 21, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry-is-language-on-drugs

I felt a sneeze - as big as God
Form in - back of - my Nose
Yet being - without - a Handkerchief
I Panicked quite - and froze
Sneeze I must - yet sneeze - must not
Dilemma - made - me grieve
Happy then - a single Bee
Saw me - use - my sleeve

Well all right, I did not read every one of the 25,678 but certainly a fair number. You know when she died they found she'd stuffed poems everywhere in her house, up the chimney, down her knickers, tied in little "packets" onto her dogs' hindquarters, someone cut a...more

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Mar 19, 2008 Timothy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Because she is so freaking good--
As good--as she can be--
She makes me want--to scream--and shout--
And set my poor heart free--

Because I cannot live without--
Her rhythm--and her rhyme--
I keep this poet close at hand
And only ask--for time.

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Mar 09, 2013 Phillip rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

i've been reading these for years. there have always been a few that took me by surprise, but lately i find this whole collection to be a really astonishing experiment in language - it's taken me years to see how modern she is (for you dickinson fans, i'm sure you're saying, well, DUH!). i say this because her work really is a kind of minimalism. she seems to to have more patience than most poets. she waits until the perfect formation of sounds and meanings emerge in just the right crystalline f...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Janice rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: all women and poetry readers

Emily Dickinson's poems convinced me, at an early age of 9 or 10, to become a writer myself. I discovered her poems from the obsolete American textbooks my mother got from the collection in our school library. On Saturday and Sunday afternoons, when it was too hot to play outside and children were forced to take afternoon siestas, I'd end up reading her poems and imagined the person, that woman, with whom I shared similar thoughts. My favorite poem remains to this day:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Margaret Langstaff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Thomas H. Johnson, ed.--The Definitive Text, Accept No Substitute

(c) Copyright 2012 Margaret Langstaff. All rights reserved. [from the forthcoming Reading Emily Dickinson by Margaret Langstaff]

So often misunderstood and ill-served by her editors and publishers, Emily Dickinson is a rara avis among major American poets. She shunned the spotlight, kept to herself and her family in her home in Amherst, MA, refusing to cater to popular tastes. She never publishe...more The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Thomas H. Johnson, ed.--The Definitive Text, Accept No Substitute

(c) Copyright 2012 Margaret Langstaff. All rights reserved. [from the forthcoming Reading Emily Dickinson by Margaret Langstaff]

So often misunderstood and ill-served by her editors and publishers, Emily Dickinson is a rara avis among major American poets. She shunned the spotlight, kept to herself and her family in her home in Amherst, MA, refusing to cater to popular tastes. She never published in her lifetime, made in fact only a few overtures to editors who were so staid and conventional that they hadn't the insight or imagination to appreciate her originality. Yet on her death she left a dresser drawer-full of thousands of poems, variant versions, snippets, notes, a massive welter of handwritten manuscripts that required a herculean effort to sort and assemble into the works she considered "poetry" and to file the detritus as "jottings, random thoughts, random expostulations." Not until this definitive edition of her texts appeared in 1955, edited by the scrupulous, meticulous textual scholar and Dickinson expert Thomas H Johnson, did this poet get a fair shake and accurate representation in print of her life's work.
Sadly most of what is parlayed online and in stores as her "poetry" is still butchered, and only amounts to sanitized, "regularized" versions of what she actually wrote, and the unsuspecting reader is none the wiser unless he or she happens to have studied Dickinson under a knowledgeable instructor or at the university level.

If you want to read and understand her work, this edition of her poems must be the basis for your appreciation and judgment, and none other. All of her other so-called "editors" changed her meter, spellings, capitalizations (all of which were "odd" yet deliberate departures from the norm for poetic effect). I also highly recommend Richard B. Sewell's incomparable biography, The Life of Emily Dickinson. Immensely readable, even compelling, and bristling with telling details that place the poet within the context of her times and New England heritage, it gives one an even deeper appreciation of what she overcame ("renounced") to pursue her art, and illuminates dimensions and aspects of the poems otherwise hidden to the modern reader.

I've studied Dickinson for over 30 years and written articles and a few books on her work and life, and I must say to any new reader: don't fall for the stereotypes, the cliches, and the b.s. aplenty that have always clouded her reputation and led the general public astray. Read deeply and see for yourself. Start by reading the "real" thing. Her finished poems as she wrote them, not as her editors "corrected" them and not the snippets and notes she made to herself to possibly work into poems.

Both as an individual and as a poet she will always remain elusive, but then she believed in the mystery at the heart of life herself, considered her own life a mystery, but tried to approach the essence and experience of the luminous "mysterium tremendum et fascinans" by capturing its beauty and profundity with metaphor and lyric.

Her Letters are also a treat, a treasure, for she was a devoted, loyal friend and tireless witty letter writer all of her life. Her epistolary style reflects to some degree her poetic penchants and inclinations, highly metaphorical, striking, surprising. In some ways they (the letters) are even more revealing of how she interacted with those whom she loved the most and are most telling of the qualities of her character and resonant of(if not fully disclosing) the particular pivotal events of her life.

Certainly she was one of a kind, far more sophisticated and worldly than most think even today, shrewd, widely read, a critical insightful reader and observer of life's conundrums and vagaries, current events, including the Civil War, the issues of the day... Anyone who has read her seriously would be hard put to find a comparable poet or life in literature or body of work. Yes, other poets (one thinks of Hopkins, Roethke, literally hundreds of other poets in many ages), have shared her intuitions and, to a certain extent her insights, but none have produced lasting verse in her singular aphoristic and numinous style. As for myself, I cannot even think of any poet or body of poetry that "reminds me of Emily Dickinson" or is "reminiscent of Emily Dickinson." Nor is it easy or plausible to suggest she was significantly influenced by any particular poetic tradition or other poet, though she read widely and deeply, and occasionally reverentially, the works of all the major poets in English. Dickinson's uniqueness, her very singularity, inimitability, is (I believe) the hallmark of only the greatest poets, and by that measure it is safe to say she will be read and appreciated, at last, for a long, long time.

Margaret Langstaff, April 2012
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Aug 20, 2007 Diana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: readingallthetime

I love Dickinson. More specifically, I love the sense of balance I feel when reading any of her poems. Her poetry has light within its overwhelming darkness; it is straightforward yet subtle. Its originality is sometimes even startling. I have learned so much in reading her work but the most powerful of lessons I take from Dickinson is to "Tell all the truth but tell it slant... The Truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind."

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Aug 23, 2009 Lightsey added it · review of another edition

Update: I am at last finished (after a year of not really steady reading). Now I just have to start memorizing. . .
The result of reading the full Emily is only greater curiosity. Now I want to see the poems as she arranged them, in their packets. The chron. arrangement pokes at a biographical revelation that ultimately seems beside the point. . . I'd rather just take her inner world as its own end. On the other hand, I've also started an edition of her letters. --She is fascinating. I'm wonderi...more Update: I am at last finished (after a year of not really steady reading). Now I just have to start memorizing. . .
The result of reading the full Emily is only greater curiosity. Now I want to see the poems as she arranged them, in their packets. The chron. arrangement pokes at a biographical revelation that ultimately seems beside the point. . . I'd rather just take her inner world as its own end. On the other hand, I've also started an edition of her letters. --She is fascinating. I'm wondering now how to present her work to students so they can see more than the sometimes-obvious surface.
*
Update: I've gotten now to the older ED. At this point, she's dryer, less intense. Two-word abstractions fill entire lines. You get the sense of a life lived among a paucity of objects, in which each object gradually assumes nearly allegorical significance.
I'm also thinking that ED is a fantasist. She writes something that she wants to read in order to stoke a certain fantasy of hers--a fantasy of unique suffering, of delayed reward. It isn't a fantasy that appeals to me (putting anything off is a bad bet). But that doesn't mean I think it makes for bad poetry.
**
I feel a bit stupid for not having read this before (and I still haven't gotten over reading Plath so late)--but, on the other hand, I think Dickinson could have been a powerfully bad influence if I'd read her earlier (Plath too). As it is I get her rhythms (quietly didactic, like a girl teaching mice) thumping through my head whenever I put the book aside. . .
--
I hate to add this, because I know I'll be reading it for, oh, the next six months, and then for the ten years after that, but I need to assert that I am still intellectually active, despite being drowned in freshman comp. Anyway--reading the complete is quite different than reading poems here and there. You get more of a sense of her world--which oscillates between having a paucity of objects and being (she protests) plenty rich enough. You also get her conflation of various male figures (god, a lover) into some many-faced male Outside. In general the poetry just seems deeper. So I must highly recommend reading the complete ED over any selection.(less)

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May 16, 2007 Kristopher rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Poetry lovers

Shelves: poetry, classics, collections, formative

I would highly, highly recommend strolling through Dickinson's collected verse. She's a (surprisingly) highly underrated poet. Going deep into her entire collection will unearth unknown gems as well as old favorites. This edition, organized chronologically, allows the opportunity to study her growth as a poet and explore her obsessions over time. It also provides the date of first publication (if there was one). A must-have for any poetry enthusiast, highly recommended for those who have a modes...more

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Jun 04, 2012 Bill Dauster rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This splendid book collects Miss Dickinson’s fruitful progeny. Before her time, she mastered the short form and slant rhyme that epitomize the modern poem. Yes, she spends far too much time lamenting death and contemplating bees, but her mostly private thoughts leave a mark on the American soul.

"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 grad...more

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Dec 31, 2008 Bruce rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Life is death we’re lengthy at,
Death the hinge of life.

This is the entire text of poem #502 in this edition, an edition gleaned from the editor’s three volume 2,500 sources variorum set of 1998. Dickinson’s poems are characteristically pithy and short, with idiosyncratic punctuation and grammar. Few were published in her lifetime. And due to the editorial changes made in them, she was very unhappy in those that were. American literature owes a great debt to her younger sister who, contrary to Em...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm tempted to only quote Dickinson in a review of this luminary of solitude, this pristine custodian of her own periodic deaths, and this mystically crowned priestess of Nature's God. When my inspiration flags, a Dickinson poem restores zest and also humility. If I had to pick a favorite poet, Emily Dickinson is it. My homage to her:

Emily Takes the Stage

The Day that I was crowned
Was like the other Days --
Until the Coronation came --
And then -- 'twas Otherwise --

Like the Beach Blanket Babylon
l...more

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Sep 29, 2011 Lady Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love Emily Dickinson and most of her works because she is a poet of transgression. Most of her poetry deals with her revolutionary observations of the world around her and with her own subcommentary on how her views differ from most people's. What I love about her poetry is that there is a tone of revelry in her self-acknowledged rebelliousness. If I had to copy all of my favorite poems of hers I might as well create an anthology; for now, allow me to share a poem that has been my favorite for...more I love Emily Dickinson and most of her works because she is a poet of transgression. Most of her poetry deals with her revolutionary observations of the world around her and with her own subcommentary on how her views differ from most people's. What I love about her poetry is that there is a tone of revelry in her self-acknowledged rebelliousness. If I had to copy all of my favorite poems of hers I might as well create an anthology; for now, allow me to share a poem that has been my favorite for quite a while now, and after which my personal blog is named (Much Madness Is Divinest Sense):

Much Madness is divinest Sense--
To the discerning Eye--
Much Sense-- the starkest Madness--
'Tis the majority
In this, as All, prevail--
Assent-- and you are sane--
Demur-- you're straightway dangerous--
And handled with a Chain

Why, if you know me at all, it is not difficult to surmise why I love this poem. This poem is a critique against conformity and public opinion of the respective age. I specify to "its respective age" because one needs not to be a genius to recognize that every era has its own majority opinion, and a very different one from the opinions of the past and the present. Of course, sometimes the established beliefs are blends from different eras of the past, different cultures, etc. However, never is the collective opinion of one age and one culture exactly identical to the collective opinion in another chronological and spatial location. That says a lot about whether or not there is such a thing as "truth," or rather if what we have are simply myths that come about to be accepted as truths because the majority says so. Of course, this type of thinking is not new, and Nietzsche is very famous for his ruminations on the subject. However, given that "truth" is subject to change, does it not make sense to question it? Well, those who deviate from the norm do not fare well in public relations, and as Dickinson observes, they are considered "mad," or insane, as would be the proper term (for some reason the word "mad" has ameliorated to mean angry). However, in the greater scope of things, actually what society considers "madness" (questioning the establishment) is a more divine form of sense than simply blindly following the status quo without knowing why-- the latter is what most of us eventually end up doing because it is society would consider "good sense;" however, blindly following established truths without at least knowing why goes against the order of what it is to be a human being with his own free will and his capacity to think critically. However, one cannot blame the conformist for who can fight against a flock of stampeding elephants and win? "Demur," says Dickinson, and "you're straightway dangerous, and handled with a chain." Rebel against the establishment of the age, and no matter how right you may be according to your philosophy, you will be treated harshly if it doesn't conform to the commonly accepted view. Yet despite these social punishments, every age has its freethinkers and revolutionaries who are not appreciated until one hundred years after their death. But whether or not they are appreciated matters little, what is important is that they were seldom slaves to the oppressive machine of public opinion, and instead lived according to their rules. A very divinely granted right that every human being should enjoy.(less)

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Jun 25, 2011 Jenny rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, read2011, poetry

I've seen a lot of references to Emily Dickinson lately so I decided to give in and read this, which I had downloaded for free from Barnes and Noble last July 4th, when they put up all their volumes in the B&N Classics Series by American authors for free download for Nook or Nook app.

DO read the collected poems of Emily Dickinson. DO NOT read this version. The editors have "helpfully" messed with her stylings, replacing her dashes with other forms of punctuation, ridiculous. You also have to...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Deja is currently reading it · review of another edition

Been reading around in this every morning and drinking it in like I've never done before. Perhaps enjoying it more because I'm not worrying about the ones I don't "get": with a volume like this (of ALL 1,775 poems she wrote), I'm just assuming there are poems that didn't work out, and if I just don't love one, I can go to the next. There are so many to choose from that I just let my eyes sort of skim, even head for all of the shorties if they wish. Been also copying down lines that resonate with...more

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Aug 03, 2010 Matt Turner rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It's a bit lame to write a review of a complete poems, especially in the case of Dickinson. I can't help but think her poetry was only meant to exist in fascicle format, as small gifts to her visitors. Especially since a complete poems has a very uneven quality, due to the timeline and the sheer amount of poems in the book. The (still large) amount of excellent poems outweighs the lesser poems by far, however, and one can at least try to imagine reading the poems in fascicle format - as if the v...more It's a bit lame to write a review of a complete poems, especially in the case of Dickinson. I can't help but think her poetry was only meant to exist in fascicle format, as small gifts to her visitors. Especially since a complete poems has a very uneven quality, due to the timeline and the sheer amount of poems in the book. The (still large) amount of excellent poems outweighs the lesser poems by far, however, and one can at least try to imagine reading the poems in fascicle format - as if the veneration of Dickinson had never begun.

But here's why her poetry is great, why I gave the book five stars, and why she deserves to be venerated. 1) Her poetry varies in tone (over time, of course, but also poem-to-poem in general), from the obscure to the extremely direct, but always carries with it an emotional weight that seems lost on a lot of other poetry. 2) Even though her emotional stanzas deliver as such, the language is often disorienting, rewarding multiple reads, never allowing a poem to be "summed up" - in an honest reading of it, anyway (more on that later). 3) Her subject matter runs from the trite to the obscure. Good. I like this "no holds barred" approach, and it stands as a model for all other writers. 4) The directness of even the most insular of her poems gives the feeling that the poems are communications to people, and not to the unnamed powers of egalitarianism, capital, or poetry itself.

As extra pluses, 1) as said before, her poems rewards rereading. But in reverse. I have a difficult time thinking of other poets whose poems get more difficult the more you read them. People who think they "get" Dickinson haven't spent much time reading her. As such, it's also a pleasure to read such a well-known author, but as if she's never been read much. 2) If one spends time with her work, one has the pleasure of debunking claims that her poetry is "obvious," "Hallmark-ish," or simply coquettish. Anyone who says such things doesn't know how to read a poem. 3) I'd also like to add that she's a nice antidote to Whitman, and a corrective to reading the later moderns as somehow more advanced in style or subject matter.

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Nov 22, 2009 Joseph rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Been digging back through Emily's chest lately, this is the edition that brings it all back to her original edits as they were found, a living headstone for a bone-stirring mistress of the word... Autumn has been a little taxing this year, a key touch of dark even when this L.A. sun is still burning a hole through the skull, and where's the rain, too? and I'm staring out the window onto my own private landscape of where the dead lay still, vodka-soaked ghosts full of regret smiling, dancing like...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Dolors rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012, poetry, best-ever

“I taste a liquor never brewed” by Emily Dickinson
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro' endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door –
When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" –
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippl...more

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Apr 14, 2011 Chris Hunt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had a guinea golden;
I lost it in the sand,
And though the sum was simple,
And pounds were in the land,
Still had it such a value
Unto my frugal eye,
That when I could not find it
I sat me down to sigh.

I had a crimson robin
Who sang full many a day,
But when the woods were painted
He, too, did fly away.
Time brought me other robins,--
Their ballads were the same,--
Still for my missing troubadour
I kept the "house at hame."

I had a star in heaven;
One Pleiad was its name,
And when I was not...more

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May 20, 2013 Brittannia Talori rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don't think it's fair to criticize a poet if you haven't read a good deal of their work. Now I have, so I can freely criticize her.

Bees. Flowers. Death. These are Emily's most favorite metaphors. If she ever let a man seduce her the way she let death seduce her, well she might have been a very satisfied woman and a far better writer. If you have no experience, then you have nothing to write about. Even the Biblical prophets knew that (I say this because her references to the Biblical prophets...more

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Sep 13, 2007 Selby rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

"MUCH madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, - you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain."

A perfect collection for a perfect poet. Poems small in length but gigantic in impact. For a classic example look above. Some argue it is about John Brown, written shortly after his execution, an interpretation I adore. Fantastic.

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Oct 26, 2009 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Emily Dickinson articulates my own thoughts and feelings in a way I never could. She manifests my ideal. She validates my existence. If you like Emily, I like you.

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

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Jun 20, 2010 Sachin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Emily Dickinson,"The famous recluse dressed in white", frequently confronted with the theme of death, portrays the picture of the death scene so vividly in her poems and also a firm believer in the OTHER world after this one is highlighted in her famous poem, "The World is Not Conclusion:
The World is not conclusion
A sequel stands beyond"
Also her seclusion and her faith and firmness in her power of being recluse is reflected in her poems, specially in, "The Soul selects her own society"
Also a gre...more

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Oct 04, 2008 Annie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-favorites-of-all-time

What can I say? Emily Dickinson's poetry is the most stunning, haunting poetry I've ever read. I'd read just a few of her poems before decidin to tackle her complete works. It's an incredible experience to read poem after poem that almost makes you feel like she understood the emotions of mortality better than anyone alive. And how she could convey that with words ... wow.

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Jul 13, 2011 Chiara Pagliochini rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classici-americani, poesia

Quando penso a Emily, raramente penso a uno scrittore, a un poeta, a un artista. Il più delle volte mi affido a lei come se fosse una persona, una persona cara, una bambina da consolare.
Nella mia testa Emily è una bambina che ha bisogno di un abbraccio e che allo stesso tempo sa abbracciare me nei momenti del bisogno.
Quando sto male, quando sento che nessuno può capirmi, Emily è qui con me: lei sa come mi sento, lei può unire il suo dolore al mio. A condividerle le ferite si fanno meno sentire.
S...more

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Jan 31, 2009 Valerie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry

I enjoy her terse style of poetry. She crams a lot of meaning into a few words.

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Sep 21, 2012 Jennifer Wixson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Emily Dickinson left a large cache of poetry -- 900 poems hand-sewn together in 60 small packets -- which her sister Lavinia discovered after Emily's death. The poems were untitled and mostly undated. Lavinia realized she had unearthed a literary treasure trove, and sought help in getting the poems published.

Early editors of Dickinson's work (notably her brother's mistress, Mabel Loomis Tood) trying to be helpful, edited some of Dickinson's idiosyncratic poetry to make it more acceptable to the...more Emily Dickinson left a large cache of poetry -- 900 poems hand-sewn together in 60 small packets -- which her sister Lavinia discovered after Emily's death. The poems were untitled and mostly undated. Lavinia realized she had unearthed a literary treasure trove, and sought help in getting the poems published.

Early editors of Dickinson's work (notably her brother's mistress, Mabel Loomis Tood) trying to be helpful, edited some of Dickinson's idiosyncratic poetry to make it more acceptable to the modern taste. This edition, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, erases those early changes and offers readers the "only authoritative paperback collection of all of Emily Dickinson's poetry."

Following a brief (and helpful) biography of the Amherst genius, Johnson assembles and numbers Dickinson's poetry by the estimated date that each poem was written. This arrangement gives the reader insight into what might have been occurring in Emily Dickinson's life at the time of creation.

The book can be approached via the usual read -- from front to back -- however, I loved just opening The Complete Poems at random and diving into whatever poems emerged from the pages. Once submerged in the fluidity of Dickinson's genius, I felt like a fish leaping up from the black depth attempting to catch a transcendent truth that alighted momentarily like a fly atop the smooth water. The spirit of the poetess and her artistic grace move elusively and fluidly through the pages, perennially present, and, in some cases prescient.

If you're looking for an opportunity to meet the woman, Emily Dickinson, personally -- perhaps slipping through her backyard flowers and herbs in her trademark white dress -- The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson offers an open gate to the garden. You won't catch her, but you'll smell the scent of the rosemary as she passes. And if you enlarge your vision, you might spy Dickinson's essence in a single flower:

The Grace - Myself - might not obtain -
Confer upon My flower -
Refracted but a Countenance -
For I - inhabit Her -

(Emily Dickinson poem #707, circa 1863, 1st published in 1935) (less)

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Oct 17, 2009 Ashok rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are other editions of Dickinson's poems, but it is hard to trust their hyphenation at the least. In other cases, the poems have been more severely edited, and in my experience, that is almost always a watering down of theme and an inability to appreciate Dickinson's artistry.

This is the only edition I recommend for the time being, and I am very grateful for it; it has been a privilege to write on poems such as "I dwell in possibility" and "There's a certain slant of light." Dickinson's tho...more

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Dec 14, 2012 Jules rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Split the lark and you'll find the music" and "Hope is a thing with feathers..." have been almost mantra-like words to my soul for many years. To confirm the strength of my assurance in the neverending song of hope, I have a filigree sparrow and musical note tattoo'd on my back; an unconventional celebration of shared beliefs with Dickinson and her unconventional-for-the-time writing style... Okay fine, so maybe I just got the tattoos because I wanted them. They just so happen to symbolize Emil...more

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Mar 11, 2010 Audrey rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Emily, despite her insightful rebukes of established Christian practice and the accepted gender roles of the day, often loses some of her poignancy in her insular petulance. Perhaps knowing a bit about her character and lifestyle colors my perception of her work unfairly, but I can not help but see her work as a kind of stubborn fit because she doesn't like the rules. Granted, the rules and expectations with regard to religion and gender, specifically motherhood and the role of women within soci...more

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About Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an American poet who, despite the fact that less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime, is widely considered one of the most original and influential poets of the 19th century.

Dickinson was born to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Aca...more Emily Dickinson was an American poet who, despite the fact that less than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime, is widely considered one of the most original and influential poets of the 19th century.

Dickinson was born to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.

Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime.The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when Lavinia, Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent. Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the content.

A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson. Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet.

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