ED

Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!

Every time I reread Emily Dickinson I fall in love with her all over again. The way her poems transform in front of you, from little jewels into abysses. No other poet makes the words themselves make me want to cry. I get so into Stein's use of words, which is like using nails or maybe toothpicks. Possibly blank dominoes. Dickinson uses words as if they not only breathe & wonder but are oftentimes dying right in front of you. I like that there of poems of hers that I felt like I "knew" a few years ago & when I reread them this week I had no idea how to interperet them. I like that the more I look at a poem of hers the more disorientingly kaleidescopic it grows. I dislike that I fell into the lame teacherly trap of pitting Dickinson & Whitman against each other as if they're the ends of the poetic spectrum. Boo to me.

Wednesday we discuss Ashbery & The Pines Vol. 2. It's going to be a cage match.