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Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson
This Anchor edition includes both poems and letters, as well as the only contemporary description of Emily Dickinson, and is designed for readers who want the best poems and most interesting letters in convenient form. An excellent introduction to the work of a poet whose originality of thought remains unsurpassed in American poetry.
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
August 3rd 1959
by Anchor
(first published 1959)
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Dickinson is a poet even when she writes prose. I had a bit of a hard time following some of what she wrote because she is so very sparce, but loved so much of what she said and the way she said it. It was a delifgtful change of pace from other things I've read lately. I was reminded why I love her poetry so much and discovered a poem I really love (perhaps because we are in the season of it) that I had not read before. "The morns are meeker than they were, The nuts are getting brown; The ...more
Before you thought of spring,
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
Except as a surmise,
You see, God bless his suddenness,
A fellow in the skies
Of independent hues,
A little weather-worn,
Inspiriting habiliments
Of indigo and brown.
With specimens of song,
As if for you to choose,
Discretion in the interval,
With gay delays he goes
To some superior tree
Without a single leaf,
And shouts for joy to nobody
But his seraphic self!
I've attempted to read Dickinson multiple times but it's always painful. I continually think of teenage whining angst while reading and basically don't want to hear it. Yeah, yeah, life is terrible and you want to die, we've heard it before. Dickinson was so introverted she made her own life a hell.
Although clearly very skilled work, it's not entirely my thing. At least, not in a collection like this. It's very ruminative, focusing on issues like death, heaven, immortality, nature, wonder etc. I can see myself loving reading one Dickinson poem, but so many different examinations of the same abstract ideas was a little too much for me. I guess I prefer a little earthiness mixed in. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, to quote Billy Joel.
Everybody jokes about Emily Dickinson and death, but she really is quite morose. I think her poetry is very good, but I can't identify very strongly with it.
The poems are brilliant, but this idiot editor went a little nuts by eliminating the dashes and capitalization. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. BUY ALMOST ANY OTHER DICKINSON COLLECTION.
The older I get, the better I like Emily Dickenson. I seriously disliked her poetry when I was first introduced to it.
i don't always understand her poems to be quite honest, but i love the ones that i do.
how wide can a man be, when he commits to one thing on one place
I couldn't fucking take it.
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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...more
More about Emily Dickinson...
Dickinson was born to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the...more
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