After Emily Dickinson passed away, her sister found around 1,800 poems in a wooden chest. Most were bound with strings, and a few still in the stages of correction.
During her lifetime, and immediately after her death, some of her poems were published, mostly due to the efforts of her sister. However, the editors found those poems unconventional and not following the rules of her time. Hence, the ones which were published were heavily edited.
In short, those had nothing of Dickinson in them!
Almost seventy years later, Thomas H Johnson decided to publish Dickinson’s poems in original form and with all em dashes (a marked feature of her poetry). He also listed Emily’s alternative word variations, restored the capitalisation of certain words, and numbered her poems.
After great pain, a formal feeling comes —
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
Dickinson has capitalised time here — ‘Yesterday’, ‘Centuries’. She highlights Heart, Nerves and Tombs, aligning all three with the mood of the poem. After suffering for a long time, one reaches an impasse state, where numbness of many years makes your physical and emotional states tomb-like.
The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone —
The oxymoron ‘A Quartz contentment’ is an apt representation of the coldness one feels. It is not a state of peace, but a compact, shell-like, monotonous existence of a stone, which could be interpreted by the public as ‘contentment’.
It is the ‘Hour of Lead’, she says. The poet again uses capitals for Hour to underline how temporality plays a great role in every stage of pain and hurt.
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —
The writer is a poet, translator and assistant professor at BCM College (Autonomous)