Emily Dickinson

Dear Emily Dickinson,

I'm not really sure how to start this letter to you. I suppose I'll just start by telling you that we have recently discussed your poems in my English 250 class; Early American Literature. Are you aware of the impact that your writings have had on us? Did you know that you had a talent with words? If not, just take note that your poems have been read by nearly everyone. In high school your better known poems are assigned readings. You are also one of the most well known literary figures...Woman in white. What do you think of that? I would imagine that you wouldn't like all the attention... There are several themes that keep appearing throughout all of the readings that we have done for this class. I would like to mention some of them here and relate them to you and your work. I hope that you don't mind.

First and foremost, I have need to know: why did you choose to live the life of a recluse? Was it a choice? Some people have anxiety disorders that keep them from going out into public. They are trapped inside their homes. Did you have some kind of disorder or was it a choice that you made? We talked in class about how this could have been your way of showing that you had control over your own life. We learned that you had a copy of Emerson's Self-Reliance essay and had marked two passages in it. Both passages contained themes of this self-reliance and control that you so longed to show...My life is for myself, not spectacle...What I must do is all that concerns me...Ms. Dickinson, didn't you ever get lonely? Was this power and control all that really mattered to you? I hate to be stuck in a house by myself for a really long time. I cannot imagine spending almost my entire adult life at home, never leaving. I don't think my parents could imagine it either! Was this, what I would think of entrapment, your freedom? I wonder if there were other ways to show that you had power and control over your life. Do you think that you took this idea of self-reliance a bit too far? I still don't understand your choice to live in this manner. I suppose "To be great is to be misunderstood" would be your motto.

In class we also discussed your love poems. Were you ever in love Ms. Dickinson? There has been some debate over whether or not that you had some kind of love for you best friend, Sue, who was married to your brother. This was a possible reason that you stayed at home: it was too painful to leave and have to share Sue with others. There are rumours that you had lovers and your own little liaisons. What say you to this?!! Another example of choice, power, and control, perhaps? Your love poems are, as someone in class mentioned, "sadistically optimistic." An example of one of these poems would be Poem 35:

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

You seem to be so happy and have a sense of pride in your broken heart. Is this because you learned that you were capable of love? It clearly has some kind of optimistic tones to it. However, there are also the shadows of the sadistic pleasure in pain aspect. This is kind of odd, Ms. Dickinson. I think that perhaps you were trying to suggest that it was better that you had loved and experienced this love with this other person, even though you lost it in the end. One of your other poems comes to mind while thinking of this "moving on after love" idea. Poem 49:

We outgrow love like other things
And put it in the drawer,
Till it an antique fashion shows
Like costumes grandsires wore.

I'm not really sure why I like this poem so well. I think that it may have something to do with the imagery that love, though we outgrow it, remains in the drawers of our hearts for all our lives. There is something beautiful in this idea. Ms. Dickinson, did you feel that Sue outgrew your love? Or were you the one that outgrew her affections? Or maybe it was a man that you were fond of...Who ever it might have been, I hope that you had some kind of happiness in your life. I know that your writing brought you some happiness but was this enough? It wouldn't be for me.

Now pardon me, Ms. Dickinson, but we also discussed the perversity of your obsession with death. Why did you have such an obsession with such a subject? Is it because of the unknown? Were you longing for death in some strange way? Death is usually a subject that most people would rather avoid. Although, you do run into one who finds it interesting...*cough*...Poe...*cough*... We learned in class that death was always around you. You were surrounded by it. Did you need freedom from being surrounded by it? Is this why you stayed at home? You'd rather write about it than actually witness it...This is another possible reason you wrote about it so often. People usually tend to write what they see and know. An example of one of these poems would be Poem 31:

Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
"Dissolve," says Death. The Spirit, "Sir,
I have another trust."

Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.

Ugh. Deep. I do like your work but your poetry with themes of death get me down sometimes. Let me write about something happy. On Thursday, the last day of class, Tony and Alice gave their facilitation. They did a great job! They showed a film (moving pictures with words) that they had made themselves. It began by showing you (played by Maddie! So cute!) as a child with your father and your brother, Austin. Tony designed a time travel machine and visited you. It was hilarious! Alice read some of your poems and discussed their meanings. As a springboard activity the class was split into two groups and we wrote what I believe are called corpse poems. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly our poems turned out to be pretty good! I think that you would have been greatly amused.

Well, Ms. Dickinson, I wanted to write you this letter to tell you how much I learned about you and your poems. The themes of power, control, self-reliance, trauma, pain, and love all resonate within your work. You used your real life experiences as inspiration and because of this your works have survived. They have survived because of people's ability to relate to the feelings and emotions that can be found in them. Thank you for writing in such a manner that captures raw human emotion. I hope that you were happy in your life as a poet and a recluse. I'll end with one of my favorite poems that I read for class, Poem 56:

A solemn thing it was, I said,
A woman white to be,
And wear, if God should count me fit,
Her hallowed mystery.

A timid thing to drop a life
Into the purple well,
Too plummetless that it comes back
Eternity until.

Sincerely,

Lizzie