Exploring Dickinson…
My growth as a writer: Fall 2005
This semester I focused primarily on poetry.
Within my pieces I attempted to:
•Mirror the style of Emily Dickinson
•Incorporate better diction into my work
•Write about diverse subjects
I’ve learned a lot since I started writing poetry. Here’s
an example of a piece I wrote while a sophomore in
Creative Writing I:
THE LIFEBOAT
Love is a lifeboat,
Languidly floundering upon the sea.
Waves crash about my head,
And threaten to prevail.
Thrashing through the icy murk,
I take hold of its side.
Hands reach down and pull me,
Into its serene interior.
My fear is gone with the wind and waves,
I sink into its gentle embrace,
And know the worst is over.
Has obvious problems with rhythm
Shows little organization
Anyone can slap words on a page that sound nice together…
I wanted to write poetry with a definite form
So I turned to the work of Emily Dickinson
The first I read by
Emily Dickinson
is a famous one…
XXXII
Hope is a 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 was immediately drawn by her
steady rhythms,
fascinating subjects,
organization,
and natural rhyme
So I set out to emulate her style.
My first attempt at writing like Dickinson took pages and
pages of editing before it sounded right…
Creeping Mortality
A sickness dwells within my bones
It seems that none can see
I daily hear its morbid tones –
Creeping Mortality
A weakness seems to rule my flesh
Pernicious darkness there
Pervading with a cruel finesse
And leaving blank Despair
The more I read her work, the more I discovered patterns
in her writing.
She used inverted word order.
She wrote in iambic meter,
usually with lines of six and eight syllables.
She capitalized common nouns she thought important
(e.g. Love, Death, Adversity, etc.)
She often used dashes to isolate important words or
phrases.
The next week, writing in Dickinson’s style came more easily
because I was more familiar with it.
It’s true that you will write like what you read!
A Different Shade
How foreign does a frequent feel
When I’ve been far away
Though threads are same beneath my heel
Seems strange the bed I lay
Though walls reserve the same mem’ry
Appear they different shade
The shadows cast by ancient tree
At noontime still do fade
But sunset here seems paler hue
Than when I said goodbye
And now that I’ve come back to you
It’s changed – I know not why.
One of her poems directly inspired two pieces of my own:
A poor torn heart, a tattered heart,
That sat it down to rest,
Nor noticed that the ebbing day
Flowed silver to the west,
Nor noticed night did soft descend
Nor constellation burn,
Intent upon the vision
Of latitudes unknown.
The angels happening that way,
This dusty heart espied;
Tenderly took is up from toil
And carried it to God.
There, - sandals for the barefoot;
There, - gathered from the gales,
Do the blue havens by the hand
Lead the wandering sails.
~ Emily Dickinson
Effortlessly Broken
My unmarred heart, so ethereal
Effortlessly broken
Though still pure, gossamer shrouded
Flesh that feels. Those caustic words pierce
My indigenous shell
Good diction
Lacks definite rhythm and other stylistic devices
Odd number of lines (rarely done by Dickinson)
The Ebbing Day
The ebbing day, it flows away
Below the darkening clouds
It’s melting down without a sound
A brilliant puddle lay
Then gathers, rushing, ever hushing
Silent round my feet
A glow invades and darkness fades
On the day we meet
“borrowed” the phrase “the ebbing day” unknowingly
(this poem was written 2-3 months after reading Dickinson’s)
it exhibits iambic meter with lines of 8 and 6 syllables
rhyme found within the lines
Variation
in subject.
(connotation
of words)
Encumbered
A word is such a flimsy thing
Yet carries so much weight
Bags bulging implications
Drag cumbrous in its wake
How does it carry such a load
Upon its spindly frame?
If only we could see the depth
Contained beneath a page!
Uses phrasing
more like
Dickinson’s
Iambic,
8-6 lines.
Punctuation
Characteristic
Of Dickinson
Recreants
There I within a stony tow’r
A zephyr stirs my hair
And feckless I must watch the hour
Remain, however, fair
A lonely eye cast down below
To spy them gallivant
Recreants inspire my woe
Yet serenades they grant
Enamoring, they gain my heart
Then deem my tow’r too high
Renege their vow and, careless, part
For sultry ‘nough, not I
Longer than most of my
other pieces.
Uses words with
altered syllables:
“tow’r” “’nough” etc.
Inverted word order.
Iambic, 8-6 syllables.
Sunsets frequent
subject of my
pieces.
Cerulean to Indigo
Describes
sunsets as the
accident of a
painter.
(man-made
beauty never
intentional)
Some natural
rhyme,
no rhyme
scheme.
A painter dropped his palette
It spilled upon the sky
The colors, every hue,
Seeping, shades intensify
Cerulean to indigo
Carmine enough
Yellow ochre and vermilion
Coalesce above
Frenetic
A zephyr dances by
In rustling skirts and whispers soft
Of grumbling men behind
Her step aroused, she madly spins
Dark visages appear
And grisly gray seeps through the blue
Trees murmur anxiously
The foliage chorus rattles on
The sun deserts the scene
Soon oaks sway to her sultry dance
Evergreens bowing low
Frenetic nature all joins in
A protuberant drop falls
Iambic, 6-8 syllables
Builds to climax
Extended personification characteristic of Dickinson
Last line 6 syllables for variety