Hope Is The Thing With Feathers--Emily Dickinson
January 28th 2009 01:06
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
I've never been a big fan of Emily Dickinson's poetry. It's not that I thought the form was bad, or the meaning to difficult to comprehend, or the diction too oblique: it's just that I never felt emotionally engaged by it. As a poet-friend of mine opinionated, "Her poetry just floats, but never really takes off." It just hovers along, low to the ground, then drops, exhausted.
But lately I've been trying to give her a second chance; I've been trying to get a glimpse into her personal poetics. Each good poet has his or her own poetics, or theory of poetry, that gives an idiosyncratic touch to their verse and makes their poetry identifiably theirs just be being the way it is.
I usually resonate more with structured, formal poetry that uses rhyme, alliteration, meter, and other linguistic devices. Most of Dickinson's poetry, while being metrically sound, were still very much free-verse in style and form. I couldn't get into it, since it just didn't click with me.
But then I read this poem, which IS much more rhythmical and rhymey than her other poetry. I thought I'd hit gold here, but somehow I liked this one even less than her other poetry. I think it's because it just doesn't feel like her: it's as if she was trying to write something that wasn't hers. Yes, the meter's good and the rhymes are nice, but--to me--it just feels dead and meaningless. I don't think it even hovers; it crawls along the ground like a slug.
The thing I've learned from this is that once a poet establishes his or her poetics--which they thoroughly understand and write well with--to deviate from that poetics is like committing poetic suicide. Just as fish can't live on dry land, one person's poetics can't mix with another's.
I'm not saying that this poem of Dickinson's is a "bad" poem; it still became famous, so it obviously has its merits. However it just doesn't fit in with the poetics that i've seen established by many of her other poems; since she established a poetics that differs from mine, when I see her try to write in a way similar to the poems I enjoy, it seems even less enjoyable.
So whatever you do as a poet, do it yourself. Make it yours. Don't try to write like someone else and expect it to be idiosyncratic to you; that's just not how it works. Poetic imitation is good for practice, but in the end, all serious poets write the best poetry when they write it as themselves.
Good night everybody!
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
I've never been a big fan of Emily Dickinson's poetry. It's not that I thought the form was bad, or the meaning to difficult to comprehend, or the diction too oblique: it's just that I never felt emotionally engaged by it. As a poet-friend of mine opinionated, "Her poetry just floats, but never really takes off." It just hovers along, low to the ground, then drops, exhausted.
But lately I've been trying to give her a second chance; I've been trying to get a glimpse into her personal poetics. Each good poet has his or her own poetics, or theory of poetry, that gives an idiosyncratic touch to their verse and makes their poetry identifiably theirs just be being the way it is.
I usually resonate more with structured, formal poetry that uses rhyme, alliteration, meter, and other linguistic devices. Most of Dickinson's poetry, while being metrically sound, were still very much free-verse in style and form. I couldn't get into it, since it just didn't click with me.
But then I read this poem, which IS much more rhythmical and rhymey than her other poetry. I thought I'd hit gold here, but somehow I liked this one even less than her other poetry. I think it's because it just doesn't feel like her: it's as if she was trying to write something that wasn't hers. Yes, the meter's good and the rhymes are nice, but--to me--it just feels dead and meaningless. I don't think it even hovers; it crawls along the ground like a slug.
The thing I've learned from this is that once a poet establishes his or her poetics--which they thoroughly understand and write well with--to deviate from that poetics is like committing poetic suicide. Just as fish can't live on dry land, one person's poetics can't mix with another's.
I'm not saying that this poem of Dickinson's is a "bad" poem; it still became famous, so it obviously has its merits. However it just doesn't fit in with the poetics that i've seen established by many of her other poems; since she established a poetics that differs from mine, when I see her try to write in a way similar to the poems I enjoy, it seems even less enjoyable.
So whatever you do as a poet, do it yourself. Make it yours. Don't try to write like someone else and expect it to be idiosyncratic to you; that's just not how it works. Poetic imitation is good for practice, but in the end, all serious poets write the best poetry when they write it as themselves.
Good night everybody!
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