At least we've passed the dread solstice now, the afternoons are getting longer again, and in a couple of months or so, we should be out of this. It could be a long couple of months, though....
There's a certain Slant of light (# 258)
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings are —
None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —
When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
2 comments:
Funny (or not), I was just thinking a couple days ago about Dickinson's "hope is the thing with feathers," triggered by coming upon in a neglected corner of the bookshelf Woody Allen's Without Feathers.
What's the deal with her and dashes, anyway? Have you ever heard or read of their significance?
Ah, I have a copy of Without Feathers somewhere, picked up in a secondhand shop when I was an undergraduate. That may in fact have been my first exposure to Emily Dickinson.
I don't know what Dickinson scholars say about her quirky punctuation - whether it was calculated innovation, or mere illiteracy, or a species of madness.
Sometimes I find it quite appealingly iconoclastic (getting rid of something we don't always really need), and torturing the meaning, the grammar in useful and interesting ways (like Cummings), breaking it up into rearrangeable fragments of sense, or creating a more emotional or stream-of-consciousness effect through its disjointedness.
At other times I lose patience with it, and find it an irritating affectation.
Post a Comment