Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson, was selected as our Monthly Short Story for August 2020. The discussion thread is located in the Monthly Short Story Folder:



Beware Short Story Discussions will have Spoilers. This discussion will not be open till August 1, 2020

Public Domain Poetry Home Page

This highlighted link above is to a Public Domain Poetry Library. You will land on the Home Page, in the upper left corner is the Main Menu. Select Authors by Surname, you will be taken to an alphabetical listing. On top select the letter "D" Then click on the name Dickinson, Emily,

The book edition listed above has one poem titled "Clock" the poetry link list this poem as "A Clock Stopped"-not the mantel's;

I understand that this link might not work for everybody, but I hope it works for most.

This is the list of poems as they appear in the edition I purchased. I believe it is the same edition listed above. If you are going to discuss a specific poem it will be helpful to list the poem title first, prior to beginning any comment. Page number may not be of any use since there are so many editions and collections of Dickinson's poems. This hopefully will make it easier for other members to refer to the poem and better understand what you’re commenting on.

Escape
Compensation
Playmates
Forbidden Fruit II
The Lost Jewel
Hope
The Sea of Sunset
Farewell
Clock
The Wind
Sleeping
Day’s Parlor
The Master
A Day
In the Garden
In Shadow
Memorials
The Soul’s Storm
The Battlefield
The First Lesson
The Wind’s Visit
Fringed Gentian
Retrospect
Dying
The Letter
Astra Castra
Two Voyagers
Griefs
Hunger
The Railway Train
Returning
The Journey
In Vain
Bequest
The Mystery of Pain
Choice
Ghosts
The Goal
The Chariot
The Wife
Disenchantment
Mother Nature
Enough
Summer Shower
At Length
A Thunder-storm
A Country Burial
Experience
The Sea
The Bee
The Lost Thought
Immortality
Contrast
The Snake
Beclouded
Evening
The Forgotten Grave
The Bluebird
The Show
A Book
March
Parting

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I purchased the Kindle version so that I could make sure I got the same collection. Luckily it was only 90 cents. I'm not a big fan of doing collections for group reads because it can be hard to find (for free) the exact same collection, but luckily I could find a cheap version this time.

It's nice that you put up a list of the poems Bob. That way if someone has a different collection they can compare. That link is great too for picking out each poem in the collection.

I hope to start on this soon.

I'll be re-reading Dickinson for this month. Just quickly to mention that she never titled her poems and the first 3 posthumous editions, appearing in a single volume on the linked edition (a few other publishers issued it as well), are the only editions of her poems to have titles that were given by the two editors. They titled most, not all poems in this collection.

If other collections/editions of her poetry are used, there will be no titles and I'm afraid the hard work that was put here to list the titles will not help to identify her poems in the collections by other editors.. All other editors followed the standard protocol for Dickinson's poems with the first lines of her poems serving as unofficial titles.

Project Gutenberg has a number of collections http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/searc...

This one "Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete"
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12242
may be complete. You can download for free in Epub and Kindle Mobi format.

ManyBooks.net have almost the same selection:
https://manybooks.net/search-book?sea...
(Sometimes ManyBooks formatting is nicer than Gutenberg's.)

Archive.org has a large selection of complete poems for free download.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet....
In my experience Archive.org books tend to be just scanned and not edited in any way. But if you are just looking for a pdf there could be some nice finds here. For instance the one in the link has years in the margin.

Another issue that may be confusing about finding Dickinson's poems are different numbers for the same poem. I don't find Wikipedia always reliable, but they did a terrific job this time trying to sort through this numbering mess. Also, since most go by the first line of her poems, their table has it too with the link to each poem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Emily_Dickinson_poems

The standard editions today, including the books about her poems published since the 1950s, refer to the numbering system in Johnson's 1955 edition though more recent anthologies might prefer Franklin's 1998 numbering in his complete edition. Both Johnson and Franklin numbered them based on their research judgment about when Dickinson might have written each poem, so they are chronological but not always in agreement.

On this linked Wikipedia's listing of her poems, they can be sorted by their first lines as well as by both numbering systems in addition to their link to the complete text of each poem.

She is one of my favorite poets and I look forward to other people's comments and reactions.

I also purchased this edition, even though I have a complete poems already. It just seemed easier to pay the .90 and not have to go searching to find the poems included here. Looking forward to everyone's thoughts.

I found it useful to use the ISBN to search out this particular volume. Perhaps that could become a standard description for collections. Folks could use another collection but would know which edition would be the ultimate reference point.

I am struggling with the meaning of the poem people have titled "The Wife". I feel like Dickinson is being as straightforward as she can be, that the limitation must be mine. It's line 7 and 8 that really lose me. 'First prospective'? I also wonder to whom the 'his' of line 1 and the 'himself' of line 11 refer to; is it the same person? I really do like the placement of 'dropped' at the end of line 1.

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,

It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.

Dan wrote: "I am struggling with the meaning of the poem people have titled "The Wife". I feel like Dickinson is being as straightforward as she can be, that the limitation must be mine. It's line 7 and 8 that..."

I understand "the gold" as a symbol for the wedding ring and "first prospective" for all those promises one expects when getting married (line 7), that they eventually get worn out (line 8).

I am also a fan of Emily Dickinson and prefer the first line designation to title or number which are imposed by editors. I also suggest you might wish to take a moment to search the internet and view the poems as Dickinson wrote them since she was a very distinctive stylist and early editors "corrected" her intended spelling, puctuation, and capitalization quirks. Below is a link to her poem (before the editors modified it),
She rose to His Requirement--dropt

https://m.poemhunter.com/poem/she-ros...

I would not get to frustrated over the meanings in Dickinson's poems as they are often ambiguous and debated. I view this as a feminist poem with Dickinson commenting on how society expected that the woman would subject herself to male dominance in union and thus drop her own interests and priorities for his, but I have not studied the poem. Note, that Dickinson had spiritual or religous inclinations and sometimes used masculine pronouns in their description.

I got the Gutenberg complete poems, so hope to find the right ones, as there´s only an index of the first lines.

I enjoyed many of the poems in the designated collection. A lot of those were ones I had read or heard before. On the other hand, a number of them had a word or line that jarred my brain making those poems seem unfinished.

I like this image because you can just feel it.

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,”

I have a number of favorite pieces of Dickinson's, so I'll spread out the postings over the next few days. First one:

"They shut me up in Prose —
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet —
Because they liked me “still” —

Still! Could themself have peeped —
And seen my Brain — go round —
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason — in the Pound —

Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Abolish his Captivity —
And laugh — No more have I —"

These are drawn from the complete works edition, so they may or may not be in the group read's choice.

"Hope is the thing with feathers" is a favorite. I love the image of a bird singing endlessly and never asking a crumb in return.

It was followed by another rather lovely poem "There's a certain slant of light". She paints a palpable image of a desolate winter's day, the kind that dampens the soul. It makes me think of a Monet collection I once saw that made me shiver with the cold winter light.

After a few poems from this collection I knew I found another poet speaking to my heart. So I decided to read all of her poems.

THE MYSTERY OF PAIN.

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

I am not very far yet. To be read slowly, I think.

So far I liked this one best for the perspective on time:

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
Rafter of satin, and roof of stone.

Light laughs the breeze in her castle of sunshine;
Babbles the bee in a stolid ear;
Pipe the sweet birds in ignorant cadence, —
Ah, what sagacity perished here!

Grand go the years in the crescent above them;
Worlds scoop their arcs, and firmaments row,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender,
Soundless as dots on a disk of snow.

I hope to start this soon--and I hope the collection I have at home includes all the poems listed above. Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson's Poems

I'm approaching this with both eagerness and a little hesitation--I've always had difficulty maintaining an interest or achieving any sort of attachment to most poetry, or at least poetry that isn't of the narrative kind. I'll probably be taking this pretty slowly

J_BlueFlower wrote: "I am not very far yet. To be read slowly, I think.

So far I liked this one best for the perspective on time:

Safe in their alabaster chambers,
Untouched by morning and untouched by noon,
Sleep th..."

Another lovely selection.
The image of the dead, lying in the grave, wrapped in their shrouds, and awaiting Christ is very powerful. That they lie there through the collapse of kingdoms, countless as drops of snow, definitely makes you feel the slow movement of time and the possibilities of infinity.

I've liked all those mentioned so far even Aubry's which I don't believe was in this collection.

I had an issue with this Kindle edition. I couldn't tell if some poems were part of another one or not (and just not named). One of my favorites that didn't have it's own title, was under "Clock" but I believe it is a separate poem:

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

This is nice and whimsical. I love nobodies!

Another favorite is under The Goal but again I believe it is seperate.

They say that 'time assuages',-
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.

Time is a test of trouble,
But not a remedy.
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no malady.

This is so true!

Yes, this edition is flawed in not separating the poems properly, titles for some and not others. Tends to aggravate.

I love both of those you have chosen. One so flippant and lighter than Dickinson's usual fare and the other so completely true.

Sue wrote: "I've liked all those mentioned so far even Aubry's which I don't believe was in this collection.

I had an issue with this Kindle edition. I couldn't tell if some poems were part of another one or..."

Glad to hear it, Sue. Here's another:

"Endow the Living — with the Tears —
You squander on the Dead,
And They were Men and Women — now,
Around Your Fireside —

Instead of Passive Creatures,
Denied the Cherishing
Till They — the Cherishing deny —
With Death's Ethereal Scorn —"

Aubrey wrote: "Sue wrote: "I've liked all those mentioned so far even Aubry's which I don't believe was in this collection.

I had an issue with this Kindle edition. I couldn't tell if some poems were part of an..."

What a beautifully insightful one Aburey. It's so true, that we often don't spend enough time cherishing people while they are alive.

Sara wrote: "Yes, this edition is flawed in not separating the poems properly, titles for some and not others. Tends to aggravate.

I love both of those you have chosen. One so flippant and lighter than Dickins..."

Yes, Sara, it's especially aggravating for people like me who aren't used to reading poetry. It took me a while to figure it out.

None of the poems should have titles in the first place, so it would have been very easy to simply separate them with a row of stars or some such device. Sloppy work on someone's part.

I had the paper copy of the edition shown. It separates the poems with a little pattern. BUT it breaks the poems across pages in very inconvenient ways. And it seemed that there was enough space to complete many of the poems on the current page... grrr.

A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is below:

He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on —
He stuns you by degrees —
Prepares your brittle Nature
For the Ethereal Blow
By fainter Hammers — further heard —
Then nearer — Then so slow
Your Breath has time to straighten —
Your Brain — to bubble Cool —
Deals — One — imperial — Thunderbolt —
That scalps your naked Soul —

When Winds take Forests in the Paws —
The Universe — is still —

I have been contemplating this one. Is the "He" here God? Is this a poem about the way in which God reveals himself to the soul of a man? I love the image of "scalps your naked Soul" and does the closing stanza evoke the awe of nature in the presence of God's work, for what else could still the universe?

Sara wrote: "A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is below:

He fum..."

Soul fits so much better than spirit! This is an example of the brain-jarring reading that I experienced with the collection.

I have ceased to use the poems here, but only looking them up by first line and reading them online. What a shame! I was shocked to find the word had been changed--that seriously affects the meaning and is a huge disrespect to the poet! And then, omitting the final two lines--again, changes the impact and meaning of the poem itself.

Sara wrote: "I have ceased to use the poems here, but only looking them up by first line and reading them online. What a shame! I was shocked to find the word had been changed--that seriously affects the meanin..."

Good plan. I am disappointed in the editor/publisher. As for me, rereading will have to happen at a later date. I hope to enjoy a different version more. I like poetry.

I will be seeking a different, possibly complete, collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry after Sara's discovery. What edition do folks have/recommend?

Sara wrote: "A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is below:

He fum..."

That is so horrible! Why would they do that? "Soul" has a much deeper meaning for me than "spirit". When I think of a soul, I think of a deeply personal & philosophical part of a person that they access with deep contemplation. It's something that can live on as in an Angel for Christianity or a second life in something like Hinduism or Buddism.

A person's spirit connotates more of a person's nature or personality in one sense or something outside the person like a ghost in another.

The soul can tame the spirit. At least that's how I see it.

I think she is talking about God too Sara. I like your interpretation. When I first read it here (It wasn't memorable before, what a difference a soul makes!), I thought of the wind as God, and the trees in the forest as people and it's as if he's shaking you to reach your soul in order to still it.

Either way, "Paws" is a curious word choice. Why do you think she chose that?

Thank you so much for posting this because I somehow blew right by it before, but now love it!

Annette wrote: "I will be seeking a different, possibly complete, collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry after Sara's discovery. What edition do folks have/recommend?"

This complete collection served me well back in the day (no ISBN, else I'd leave a shorter link): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...

Here's another piece from it:

"God is indeed a jealous God —
He cannot bear to see
That we had rather not with Him
But with each other play."

Sue wrote: "Sara wrote: "A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is b..."

My guess would be that she uses "paws" because it is nature and not man what is shaking the trees; and God shaking the soul.

I so agree that those two alterations make this a mundane poem, when it is, in fact, a sublime one.

Really love that, Aubrey, especially because it takes your mind directly to Exodus "for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God".

Aubrey wrote: "Annette wrote: "I will be seeking a different, possibly complete, collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry after Sara's discovery. What edition do folks have/recommend?"

This complete ..."

Thanks, Aubrey! In the interests of my personal instant gratification, I immediately googled and found a nice, used copy similar to yours... to arrive at the end of the month :P

I decided to buy the edition edited by Thomas H. Johnson, which is considered the definitive edition. He numbered the poems and his numbering system is the one most commonly used. It was $3.05 on Amazon...won't break me.

Sara wrote: "I decided to buy the edition edited by Thomas H. Johnson, which is considered the definitive edition. He numbered the poems and his numbering system is the one most commonly used. It was $3.05 on A..."

Same for me Sara but from elsewhere. But at 770 pages I don't think this collection will fit in the Short Story category anymore!

No, but we can just pick out the ones that are in this terrible edition and save the others for later. I would like to be able to say I have read the all someday. There is one I particularly love and it doesn't seem to be part of the shorter edition, so I will be seeing if I can find it in the complete.

Is the problem with the book edition or the internet link? I can delete the link no trouble.

No, it's the book edition, Bob. It is just poorly done.

I avoided the kindle edition of your link Bob, because there were also negative comments about it on Amazon, but I bought it now nonetheless, because it´s easier to have the poems we´re reading in one place.

I'm just using it as a guide for which poems to read and then finding them online or now in the second download I bought.

I think it was the default edition. I bought it to get a list of the poems. I went page by page writing down the titles. Surprised me to learn titles were not original to her poetry. All I can do is apologize, what I know about poetry wouldn't fill a thimble.

Do your best, the discussion seems to be going well.

Yes, we will be fine because her work is so universally available. The titling of the poems (which was only done some of the time--so what's that about) was a very irritating thing for me. I have never seen anyone try to title them before, they always use the number system or just the first line. But, changing the words in the poem or leaving out parts is sacrilege IMHO.

Sara wrote: "A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is below:

He fum..."

I don't think it is just this edition. Googling a bit I found this:
... there are two versions to this poem. "He Fumbles at Your Spirit" is taken from Dickinson's three-part poem collection, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.
However, the other version numbered 315 from The Selected Poetry of Emily Dickinson begins with "He fumbles at your soul", and adds two extra lines at the end: "When Winds take Forests in their Paws The Universe is still" (13-14).
These two lines are independent from the other stanzas, and creates a sense of closure to the poem.
http://www.geocities.ws/ks1uncp/expli...

I like the soul-version best, also for the hyphens

Deals one imperial thunderbolt

just does not have the same impact as

Deals — One — imperial — Thunderbolt —

J_BlueFlower wrote: "Sara wrote: "A word of caution...this edition is seriously flawed! In poem 315 "He fumbles at your soul" the word soul is replaced by spirit and the final stanza is omitted. The proper version is b..."

Thanks for the information, J. I much prefer the "soul" version as well and suspect Dickinson would have said the other version was unfinished. It is good to know it was not just some editor taking a liberty!