Emily Dickinson was the first poet I actively read. I was in high school, and had stumbled upon a collection of her poetry in the discard pile at the library. I didn’t know anything about her writing; I just knew that she was important and so I took her book home. As unfamiliar as I was with poetry, reading her was a study in intuition—I didn’t know how or why the poems worked, or what the dashes meant, but I didn’t care. The poems seemed so simply composed but so full of meaning I found myself hovering over one or two of them for hours trying to figure out how they worked.
I recently went back and reread her work, and stumbled across this great poem. Just savor the opening line:
1128.
These are the Nights that Beetles love–
From Eminence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again–
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing–
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing–
Too dear the Summer Evening
Without discreet alarm–
Supplied by Entomology
With its remaining charm–
Emily Dickinson has captured the American imagination with her mystery. Trying to figure out how she spent her time and what she read and who inspired her has become a riddle. The Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts is full of pithy facts about her life; if you can’t get out there to visit it, their website is fun to explore. Learn a little bit more about America’s Sweetheart Poet.
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