Emily Dickinson

Eve Grubin – two poems

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grubinYesterday Eve Grubin was due to give a talk at the British Library entitled “The Poetics of Reticence: Emily Dickinson and Her Contemporaries”. Unfortunately, owing to circumstances beyond her control, this lecture was cancelled.

Ms Grubin is an excellent poet in her own right and we have decided to print two of her poems which are readily available on her own site which readers may consult for further material (http://www.evegrubin.com/close.php).

It is not difficult to see why Eve Grubin is drawn to the poetry of Emily Dickinson: her own poetry is spiritual and mysterious and driven by minute observations, reflecting the great sensitivity of a life lived intensely, passionately.

We hope that in the not too distant future she will be able to return to the British Library to deliver her talk on Emily Dickinson and in the meantime we send her our best wishes.

Eve Grubin was born and raised in New York City. She was the Programs Director at The Poetry Society of America for five years (2001-2006). She divides her time between London and New York.

When the Light Begins to Close

When the light begins to close, just before it closes,
I am looking out the window or walking beside buildings,

a wave of uncertainty—suffocating, numinous—rushes my throat,
quick, unmistakable.

Suddenly I am my name:
standing in the garden, the fruit eaten, seeds burning the dust.

Loneliness, slanted cold enters the air around my neck.

Eve looks at the wet eyes of the animals, once soft and brown. The rotation of the earth moves through her, me.

Holiness, a slanted cold
sifts the spaces between my fingers.

At end of day, light contracts: I stare into trees and lamps, the gray
sidewalk, shadows walking into shadows. What is it

about the transition between sun and dark, hope and gloaming,
that constricts, elates?

*

A Boat of Letters

arrives, and I lie down in its white wet,
ink prints on my cheek, feet, and dress.
Last night I dreamt my husband
held me like a forceful wind
as I strained forward to hear
a group of girls sing soft, unclear,
in our doorway.
I pushed towards them. They seemed far away.
He was strong, and I struggled against him.
Boat of letters, filled to the brim,
take us to your wild inky swamp
where leaves hang down like muted lamps,
where we can write and read; and with each broken seal,
let there be an answer, a surprise, something delightful!

Emily Dickinson – a breath of fresh air

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dickinsonIt is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the influence of Emily Dickinson’s poetry on subsequent generations of male and female poets writing in English or indeed any other language throughout the world. Although she wrote almost 2000 poems, only a handful were published in her lifetime. Scholars have since written extensively on the themes of her poetry: the beauty of flowers and nature, the inevitability of death, her Christian faith and what she called the undiscovered continent or the landscape of the spirit.

Her preoccupation with the mystery and complexity of human consciousness brings with it a desire to shape her poetry in a truly revolutionary manner. Her verse is renowned for its unconventional syntax, for the use of dashes and irregular capitalisation. It would be easy to dismiss this as an idiosyncratic fad: but that would be to ignore the true character of her genius. The syntax, the form of the poem on the page, represents a deliberate challenge to the status quo; and the freedom Dickinson demands in her verse is the freedom to breathe and to express her breath as she feels it. When contemporary readers of her poetry suggested she might make concessions by adding a few commas and full stops instead of her dashes, she was adamant that such a practice would destroy her poetry.

The poem below was written in homage to a lady who, in all her modesty, tore up the poetry rule book. It was a truly remarkable act of emancipation. As with earlier poems on this blog in homage to Marianne Moore and John Berryman, I sought to convey my admiration for Dickinson’s work by adopting, as far as I could, the vocabulary and the stylistic devices typified in her poetry. An impossible task! But this was done in the spirit of those artists who set up their easel in front of an old master in the National Gallery and seek to reproduce a painting in order to learn new techniques and appreciate the challenges faced by the original painter. A learning curve that can bring knowledge and skill, but alas, not genius.

Emily Dickinson

On the cusp of the Night –
Hands clasped as though
in Prayer – she observes
the last flicker of the Candle

Light’s demise – tinged
with the scent of Beeswax –
signals no Death
of the Imagination

Silence and Darkness:
these could be loved –
eternally – intimately
No human Consolation

between the cold white
Sheets – but Words warmed
on her Breath – mind Forms
of companionable Poetry