"Shall I take thee, the Poet said"

Shall I take thee, the Poet said
To the propounded word?
Be stationed with the Candidates
Till I have finer tried --

The Poet searched Philology
And when about to ring
For the suspended Candidate
There came unsummoned in --
That portion of the Vision
The Word applied to fill
Not unto nomination
The Cherubim reveal --

F (1243), 1872

This poem represents another one of Dickinson's many that directly reference the act of creating poetry. In it, a poet struggles to find the correct word(s) to use for a poem, compiling an exhaustive list of potential "Candidates." Eventually, having failed to locate a suitable replacement, they resign to use the word that they had originally considered when they are suddenly struck by the arrival of the perfect word, as if sent by the angels above. 

Like many of her art-centered poems, this poem interestingly explores her attitudes regarding the relationship between the act of writing and creation, as it portrays the poet in distinctly religious terms, whether being represented as A) a God-like figure themselves or B) God having a firsthand degree of influence over them. Dickinson's diction and imagery throughout the poem adds to this religious conflation. Most obviously, she invokes the angelic race of the Cherubim at the poem's end, crediting them with providing her the perfect word she had been searching for. She also does it more subtly with her use of the word "Candidate" which, aside from its everyday meaning, was also a term used in her local Congregational church to denote hopeful new converts according to the Dickinson lexicon. She also plays with this concept from a formal standpoint as well, particularly in her clever use of capitalization. For instance, and perhaps most tellingly, she does not capitalize the first appearance of "word" in the first stanza, but does in the second after it has been ordained, in some sense, by the cherubim. This connection to the Word of God feels especially relevant given her repeated capitalization of "Poet," which plays into the idea that poets are endowed with God-like abilities due to their role as creators. 

Knowing Dickinson's penchant for creating various versions of her poems, often with wildly different wording from version to version, the poem can also be seen as a humorous ode to her fascination with editing and revising. It's worth noting that even this poem went through a handful of word changes and substitutions. One must speculate which one of these substitutions may have represented the perfect word granted to her by the Cherubim. 

http://edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/601710

Manuscript of the poem, with visible word substitutions.

"The Poets light but Lamps --"

The Poets light but Lamps --
Themselves -- go out --
The Wicks they stimulate --
If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns --
Each Age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference --

F (930), 1865

This poem finds Dickinson reflexively examining the work of the poet and how it is shaped by the passage of time and vice versa. The first line presents what is potentially an example of one of many noticeable formal quirks of Dickinson's poetics, as she often played by her own rules when it came to punctuation. The lack of an apostrophe (one of the more common forms of punctuation she typically jettisoned) in her use of "Poets" here functions to allow the line to be read two ways, one where an apostrophe is assumed (The Poet's light but Lamps) and the other where it is simply referring to the plural of "Poet" where "light" becomes a verb. Either feels plausibly correct for a Dickinson poem, but it is interesting to note that both options circle around to the same meaning: though the poet(s) "Themselves -- go out --" and physically die, their work may live on, with every new era through which they continue to be preserved providing new ways to read and interpret what they've left behind. 

Lamps in a row like poets through the ages.

It is hard to read a poem that speaks of poetry on such a large, universal scale and not wonder how Dickinson saw herself fitting into it, particularly given her staunch views against publication and wishes to have her works burned after her death. One's attention is drawn to the qualifier that ends the first stanza and extends into the next: "The Wicks they stimulate -- /if vital light/Inhere as do the Suns --" Could this possibly be Dickinson making a kind of value judgement on her own work, questioning its potential for longevity? Whatever the case may be in that regard, one would be hard pressed to argue that Dickinson's work doesn't almost perfectly exemplify the very nearly mythical passage into timeless sublimity that the second stanza seems to describe, as it has managed to touch generations of readers throughout the world, with each one offering up new schools of theory and criticism in the process of fathoming the true scope of Dickinson's "Circumference." 

"When we have ceased to care"

When we have ceased to care
The Gift is given
For which we gave the Earth
And mortgaged Heaven
But so declined in worth
'Tis ignominy now
To look upon —

F (1737), Undated 

This poem seems to hearken back to an age-old anxiety for Dickinson: namely, the existence of heaven or some kind of afterlife. While she has several poems that anticipate a kind of dissatisfaction or apprehension about the restrictiveness of Heavenly life ("I shall know why -- when Time is over", "I never felt at Home -- Below"), this poem is interesting in that it appears to feature a deceased speaker who is now aware that there is nothing after death and is unsuccessfully trying to cope with that emptiness and the ultimate realization that, without a heaven or hell, the time they spent worrying about sin is essentially meaningless. 

If "The Gift" that is being given in this poem is taken to mean the answer to the burning question: "What is the meaning of life/suffering?" it can be said to bear a considerable amount of tonal and lexical similarities to "I shall know why -- when Time is over." While the speaker of that poem finds themselves in Heaven being granted detailed explanations of "each separate anguish" by Christ himself, they recognize that these answers are coming to them after they have "ceased to wonder why" as they are not in a position to fully utilize them. The speaker of this poem, on the other hand, has outright "ceased to care," a decidedly more visceral reaction to the nothingness that now surrounds them. 

To sin is "mortgage Heaven" and risk one's place in it.

The use of the verb "gave" in line three is perhaps the most difficult aspect of the poem to comprehend. The Dickinson lexicon offers a host of possible options for a meaning, but the most appropriate in this context may be its definition of it as to "Commit: yield to the power of." In a sense, we commit our lives to Earth in the hopes that, at the end of them, we will be given "The Gift" that allows us to prescribe them a true reason and purpose. The phrasing of "mortgag[ing] Heaven" and "ignominy" can both be boiled down to the act of sinning, which Christian doctrine would obviously expect one to abstain from. The speaker, knowing now that, in actuality, there was no place in Heaven to jeopardize, recognizes how "declined in worth" the concept of their sins looks to them. 

While the speaker's somewhat paradoxical position of narrating from a non-existent afterlife may simply be chalked up to the artifice of the poem, it does offer another intriguing possibility, one that suggests they may be stuck in some kind of limbo. Knowing Dickinson's up and down relationship with faith and belief and her resistance to fully converting to the religion of her time, the speaker here may be channeling some kind of purgatorial apathy, a place in between Heaven and Hell where the sins they committed bear less weight due to there being no chance of redemption. The ending dash in the final line "To look upon --" may also imply that they're going to have to continue looking upon those sins in perpetuity.

http://edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/614673
  

"Image of Light, Adieu --"

Image of Light, Adieu --
Thanks for the interview --
So long -- so short --
Preceptor of the whole --
Coeval Cardinal --
Impart -- Depart --

F (1586), 1882

This brief but incredibly clever poem functions to fit at least two distinct interpretations, both of which serve as recurring themes for Dickinson's poetry. The first of these readings views it as a commentary on faith and the transient nature of Dickinson's experiences with it, a frequent point of concern for her, as seen in similar poems such as "I've known a Heaven, like a Tent --."  Much like how the faith in that poem is said to "Pluck up its stakes, and disappear -- /Without the sound of Boards/Or Rip of Nail..." it is here seen to appear and disappear, "Impart -- Depart --" in much the same way, with the holy "Image of Light" providing only a short "interview" before going away and leaving Dickinson once again. 

The Image of Light bids adieu

The second possibility sees the poem as another in a long line of Dickinson's poems chronicling sunsets ("The Sun kept stooping -- stooping -- low!," "An ignorance a Sunset," and "Bring me the sunset in a cup" for some prominent examples). In this sense, the literal "Image of Light" provides its "Interview" in the form of a day. Dickinson also seems to be punning on "So long" as both a phrase for goodbyes (whose American usage Merriam-Webster interestingly traces back to none other than fellow poet, Walt Whitman) as well as a note on the relative simultaneous length and brevity of a day. 

The more complex fourth and fifth lines also manage to fit both of these readings in interesting ways, as the moniker "Preceptor of the whole" can easily work to describe both God in his relation to humanity and existence, and also the sun in its relation to the scope of a day cycle. The usage of the words "Coeval Cardinal" continue to further this dual interpretation. The Dickinson lexicon notes "Coeval" can mean both "contemporary" and "ancient," characteristics that can be attributed to God, who may be said to become more "contemporary" in those moments of faith in which the "Image of Light" appears before retreating into back the "ancient" and abstract when it leaves. Likewise, the Sun exists with us today while also being "pre-mortal." The lexicon also recognizes the religious connotation of "Cardinal" while noting its potential figurative representation of "horizon points at sunrise or sunset." Knowing Dickinson's sense of humor and wit, the idea that she meant for both of these interpretations to be plausible is certainly likely. 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/so-long-origin

http://edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/602061

http://edl.byu.edu/lexicon/term/601748

"My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun"

My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun --
In Corners -- till a Day
The Owner passed -- identified --
And carried Me away --

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods --
And now We hunt the Doe --
And every time I speak for Him --
The Mountains straight reply --

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow --
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through --

And when at Night -- Our good Day done --
I guard My Master's Head --
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow -- to have shared --

To foe of His -- I'm deadly foe --
None stir the second time --
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye --
Or an emphatic Thumb --

Though I than He -- may longer live
He longer must -- than I --
For I have but the power to kill,
Without -- the power to die --

F (764), 1863

This poem stands as one of the most famous and, appropriately, most widely written about in Dickinson's body of work. Its many possible interpretations have given scholars much room for speculation, but, as is true for many of her best poems, it has eluded a definitive reading. 

The poem seems to describe the courtship and eloping of the at one time timid speaker and her "Owner," whom she appears to credit for discovering and unlocking her previously untapped potential for displays of violence. They journey together into "Sovreign Woods" hunting "Doe" and gleefully indulging in the discharge of their violent urges. The speaker expresses an extreme attachment to her "Owner" and "Master," as she relates her vigilance in watching over him while he sleeps and protecting him from his enemies. The poem ends with the ultimate example of this deep connection, as the speaker proclaims her hope that her Owner will live forever and lamenting the limitations she feels without him, possessing "the power to kill/Without -- the power to die --"

One of the Master letters, whose first line gave this blog its namesake.

While its imagery of "Loaded Gun[s]" and two partners in crime on a spree together certainly calls to mind the exploits of the 20th century's poster-children for dark romanticism, Bonnie and Clyde, or the echoes of their influence seen in films like Terrence Malick's Badlands or Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, interpretation of this poem seems to position it as another one of Dickinson's many ruminations of the act of creating poetry itself. This is perhaps best illustrated by connecting it to one of the poems previously covered in this blog, "On my volcano grows the grass," which deals with a similar notion of the conflict between outward docility and inward violent turmoil. While the “Gun” in “My Life had stood” is described in terms of a volcano through the lines ("It is as a Vesuvian face/Had let its pleasure through --"), it is notable that it is initially controlled by and dedicated to the service of its “Owner” (perhaps in reference to a male muse she had been infatuated with at the time). The speaker's use of the word "Master" as another name for the Owner also lends weight to this idea, as it may provide a possible connection to the infamous "Master letters," a series of cryptic (even for Dickinson) one-sided correspondences she addressed to an unknown recipient. These letters express a similar degree of fervency in their devotion to whomever the Master may be, and scholarly conjecture posits it is possible they were a muse of Dickinson's. 

With this in mind, one notes the difference between the ways the symbols of the "Gun" and the "volcano" (perhaps both representing mediums for poetic expression) are treated between the two poems, as in "On my volcano" it is Dickinson herself taking ownership of the "volcano" and its potentiality for creating destruction. In this sense, one can recognize a deeper sense of control and personalized nuance over the capabilities the volcano has. She can choose to remain dormant and allow the grass to grow upon it and the birds to visit (reflecting the "power to die" hinted at in "My life had stood"), or erupt and destroy her surroundings (the "power to kill") all of her own accord, no longer dependent on the guidance/inspiration of the Owner/Master. In this regard, the undated (and presumably later) “On my volcano” may be Dickinson addressing this inherent duality from a place of both personal and professional maturity, while “My Life had stood” focuses on the unbridled exploration of the pleasure in indulging in the at times destructive urges of one’s whim when it is brought out by an intense adoration for a lover or paramour. 

"We dream -- it is good we are dreaming --"

We dream -- it is good we are dreaming --
It would hurt us -- were we awake --
But since it is playing -- kill us,
And we are playing -- shriek --

What harm? Men die -- externally --
It is a truth -- of Blood --
But we -- are dying in Drama --
And Drama -- is never dead --

Cautious -- We jar each other --
And either -- open the eyes --
Lest the Phantasm -- prove the mistake --
And the livid Surprise

Cool us to Shafts of Granite --
With just an age -- and name --
And perhaps a phrase in Egyptian --
It's prudenter -- to dream --

F (584), 1863

This poem sees Dickinson continuing to indulge in the exploits of the vaguely macabre, as it appears to offer a somewhat surreal endorsement of nightmares and theatrical death as a means of feeling a connection to the concept of one's mortality without dying in actuality. The notion of "playing" along with these imaginary deaths is juxtaposed by the recognition that, while death represents an undeniable fact of life, the stark imagery of suddenly being reduced to mere "Shafts of Granite" places an alienating and cold finality that the comparative sublime ideal of "dying in Drama" does not. 

It is particularly worth noting that the date of the poem's writing would have positioned it right during the middle of the Civil War. In a situation where "Men die -- externally" in massive quantities every day and the "truth -- of Blood" would have been virtually ever-present and unavoidable in the news, one can understand why the concept of imagined death in a nightmare or fictional death in a play or other form of drama where the knowledge that it wasn't really happening would have served some form of comfort, maybe even providing a kind of therapeutic tool to help come to terms with that real life carnage. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) presented a scenario in which it was not
"prudenter-- to dream --"

In a modern context, it's hard not to associate this poem and its message with the immense popularity and longevity of the horror film genre. As Dickinson states, "Drama -- is never dead --" and the success of decades of films spotlighting all kinds of varieties of gruesome deaths and nightmares captured on celluloid has certainly proved that point in spades. There is an undeniable catharsis that comes from being able to view the darker, more morbid aspects of existence through a "prudenter" imagined lens. It allows us to fathom our own mortality and, in a broad sense, the human condition as a whole, in ways that give us a taste of that fear without actually putting us in danger of the "Phantasm -- prov[ing] the mistake." It's interesting to examine how the poem's interplay between dreams and death has been mirrored by the development of the genre as well, with high profile series like A Nightmare on Elm Street and heavy reliance on dream logic emphasized in the works of Italian auteurs like Dario Argento (Suspiria, Deep Red) and Lucio Fulci (The Beyond, City of the Living Dead). The combined effect of these directors' vibrant use of color, fluid, POV-style camerawork, and elaborate, often nonsensical plotlines function to emulate the powerful feelings that can come from a harrowing nightmare, touching upon that certain sense of the sublime that Dickinson hints at in the poem. 

"How much the present moment means"

How much the present moment means
To those who've nothing more --
The Fop -- the Carp -- the Atheist --
Stake an entire store
Opon a Moment's shallow Rim
While their commuted Feet
The Torrents of Eternity
Do all but inundate --

F (1420), 1877

Conventional depiction of a fop

This deeply ironic poem finds Dickinson's speaker profiling and summarily chastising a cast of characters who spend their lives living irreverently or inefficiently despite their time on earth being limited. These individuals choose to distract themselves with petty concerns such as narcissistic self-obsession ("The Fop"), unnecessary complaining and criticism ("the Carp"), and willful and prideful disbelief ("the Atheist") instead of making the most of the all too short "present moment" they have been allotted.  

The tone of this poem feels strikingly more passive-aggressive and considerably more dogmatic than we may be accustomed to hearing from Dickinson, which makes the possibility that she's attempting to take on some kind of other persona through the speaker a plausible explanation, perhaps one of a disgruntled pastor or some other religious figure. This is especially pertinent in how intact the sense of faith and belief that is channeled here seems to be. While it's true that Dickinson has a fair share of poems steeped in proclamations of rather blunt faith ("I never saw a moor"), these poems feel like outliers compared to the much more significant quantity of her works which depict intense struggles with questions of faith, God's true nature, and the existence of an afterlife ("I felt a funeral, in my brain" and "I shall know why-- when Time is over" serving as perfect examples). The fact that many of those same poems can also easily be read as "carping" about life's complexities and big unknowns to one degree or another adds another layer of irony, leading one to wonder if a self-aware Dickinson could be using the poem as a way to poke fun at her own proclivity for focusing on the darker, more troubling facets of life during a finite existence. 

Here, however, she seems to back away from those questions with a notable distance in order to lampoon the behavior of these others. The mention of the three individuals' feet are "commuted" seems to subtly invoke the concept of Jesus' dying for humanity's sins, with the implicit criticism being that they are squandering that sacrifice with their careless and selfish attitude towards existence, a much more directly traditional Christian endorsement than Dickinson is prone to making. We are ultimately led to understand that the answer to the poem's implied question of "How much [does] the present moment mean/To those who've nothing more[?]" is "not very," but the reasoning that gets us there almost borders on hypocrisy. Perhaps, in Dickinson's rationale, these characters' attitudes on life are as "shallow" as the limited time we have on earth in a relative sense because they are complacent and not truly engaging with life's questions in a meaningful manner, but that places her own battles coming to terms with them in a somewhat awkward light. Barring the potentiality of self-awareness or abstraction through an imagined speaker, this poem stands as one of the more perplexing entries in the Dickinson canon.