Hmm..sounds
familiar? Heard that somewhere before but never knew who said
it? She was Emily Dickinson, again one of the poets of my
choice. Reading Dickinson's poetry can sometimes feel like
peering in on a private correspondence. Her poetry is both
simple and complicated, but they are at all times poignant
to the mind. Many of Dickinson's poems are untitled, perhaps
due to the reason that she died before she could decide to
print them.
Yet,
when reading her poems, I often feel that the lack of titles
contribute more to making her poems more cohesive and generally,
linking them all into a big story of her thoughts towards
life. "After Great Pain" is the poem that ultimately
led me to find out more about this wonderful poet. Somehow,
her words in this particular poem provide a remedy for one's
feelings of depression.
After
great pain, a formal feeling comes -
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Ttombs -
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The
Feet, mechanical, go round -
Of Ground, or air, or Ought -
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone -
This
is the Hour of Lead -
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow -
First - Chill - then Stupor - then the letting go -
[Emily
Dickinson, no. 341]
go
to: http://www.kutztown.edu/faculty/reagan/dickinson.html
Along
with Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson was one of the 2 great
American poets of her century. But unlike Whitman, who refused
to stop publishing, Dickinson hardly began. Hidden away in
her lifelong Amherst home, she wrote a staggering number of
poems - nearly 1800 - of which only a few were published in
her lifetime.
Dickinson
was the classic introvert, shy of human contact but possessed
of a deep and dramatic inner life. Small events unleashed
torrents of poetry, full of reflection and feeling though
lacking in concrete detail. We can only guess at the "great
pain" that inspired this poem, which is still one of
her best-known.
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