Poets and Poems: Andrea Potos and “Two Emilys”

Emily Bronte (1818-1848) and Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) had more in common than their first names. Bronte published her classic Wuthering Heights under the pen name of Ellis Acton; Dickinson was little known, publishing only one letter and only 10 poems in her lifetime. Both became famous under their own names after they died. They lived in a time when women writers were not freely published.  

Poet Andrea Potos knows the work of both writers, and in her new poetry collections, Two Emilys, she pays tribute to them. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Sherborne Missal Chaffinch – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“The Maldive Shark,” poem by Herman Melville – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Kingdom of Tales – poem by Selah Cross at Story Warren.

 

Italy’s sunken city returning from the sea – Eva Sandoval at BBC.

 

The enduring brilliance of C.S. Lewis – Alexander Larman at The Spectator.

"The Illustrated Emily Dickinson" for Children - and Adults

Ryan Van Cleave has a passion for writing, his own and that of others. He’s a writing coach. He’s a teacher and writing program coordinator. He’s a speaker. He’s written and produced a number of children’s books about poetry, like The Illustrated Emily Dickinson. 

It’s an oversized, colorful book, likely aimed at ages 5 to 9. It includes what Van Cleave calls “25 essential poems” by Dickinson. The poems include some of the poet’s best-known works – “Success is counted sweetest,” “Because I could not stop for death,” “I never saw a Moor,” and “A Light exists in Spring.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Van Wyck Brooks’ “New England Indian Summer”

Indian Summer – that kind of early fall, usually in late September or early October, when the leaves on trees are signaling a change is coming but the temperatures feel mostly like summer. Van Wyck Brooks used that metaphor in New England Indian Summer 1865-1915 to describe the literary culture in New England between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I. The book was published in 1940, four years after his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Flowering of New England (1815-1865).

The metaphor is an apt one. On the surface, it appeared that New England and Boston still dominated literary life in the United States. But the signs of change were all around.

The giants of the Longfellow / Hawthorne generation had died or shortly would die. They were succeeded by writers like William Dean Howells (1837-1920), Henry Adams (1838-1918), and Henry James (1843-1916), all fine writers but not of the same caliber as the previous generation.

Part of the reason for the change, Brooks says, was the Civil War. With the victory of the North and the end of slavery, there simply weren’t as many compelling causes left to be inspired by and fight for. Another reason was the rise of the Industrial Revolution, which dead-ended old centers of commerce, literally transformed the landscape, and pulled people away from traditional pursuits like farming. And third, the “national impulse” was continue to move westward.

Emily Dickinson

Poetry exemplified the change in New England literary culture. Only one great New England poet emerged during this period, Brooks says, and she did largely for the very reasons that were causing the change in other literary pursuits. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) led an eccentric lifestyle for the last 26 years of her life, never emerging from her home in Amherst, Mass. Her poetry was not published until after her death.

The chapter in New England Indian Summer on Dickinson is not as long as others but it one of Brooks’ best in the book. Although published in 1940, Brooks does not give short shrift to women writers and poets. While the emphasis is on male writers, he does include rather extensive information on their female counterparts.

And of Dickinson, Brooks says this: “Where others merely glowed, she was incandescent.”

Van Wyck Brooks

This work is written in much the same style as The Flowering of New England. It’s highly readable, with an engaging voice that more resembles speech than writing. It’s a style that was already falling out of favor with academic writers in Brooks’ own day, and certainly by the time of his death in the 1960s. But he aimed at big themes and large images.

After this generation, Brooks writes, New England would “find spring again.” A new generation of writers was arising – Edwin Arlington Robinson, Eugene O’Neill, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, and (especially) Robert Frost. Even Midwesterner T.S. Eliot would be shaped by Harvard before moving on to England. Indian Summer not not signify the end of literary New England. But it did signify change, and even with its new voices New England would never again dominate the national literary scene.

Related:

Van Wyck Brooks, Washington Irving, and Literature

Van Wyck Brooks, William Prescott, and History

Van Wyck Brooks and The Flowering of New England

Van Wyck Brooks: A Tale of Two Publications

Photograph of Indian Summer by Larisa Koshkina via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Finding God with Emily Dickinson

We’re so familiar with Emily Dickinson today that we forget she was virtually unknown in her lifetime (1830-1886). She wrote more than 1,800 poems over her lifetime, but very few were published while she was alive. Various editions were published after her death, but it was until a definitive edition of her poems (unedited, as she wrote them) was published in 1955, notes author Kristin LeMay.

Contributing to the contemporary lack of awareness was Dickinson’s penchant for avoiding people. As she grew older, she stayed inside the family home in Amherst. Few visitors could persuade her to see them; occasionally she would talk to guests behind a door. She also wore all white, all the time.

A factor in the community’s judgment of “eccentric” was that, at an early age, she stopped attending church. And yet her poetry is filled with references to God, Jesus Christ, faith, the cross and other tenets of Christianity. This is what attracted Kristin LeMay to Dickinson, and how she used Dickinson’s poetry to answer her own doubts, questions, and uncertaintities.

To continue reading, please see my post at TweetSpeak Poetry.