Emily Dickinson. 1830-1886. The 1st major American poet. Didn't publish her work. Can you imagine writing & continuing to write without an audience?
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.
How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Without experiencing it herself, she knew what publicity was made of.
This complete opposite of Britney Spears wasn't nearly as simple as
the simple words she writes with.
And the rhymes. They're so good you hardly know they're there.. But
they've got sharp & genuine teeth if you read her close.
2 Comments:
She was a bedroom poet, but I can respect that. Then again, I couldn't imagine being around a chic like this. She wrote in misery. Lord knows, how many girls wrote in their unicorn mead notebooks in highschool after their break-up thanks to her. But I did enjoy her work and the fact she didn't need an audience to validate what she wrote.
-Clarence
Once you write it down, there is an audience. There is the implied anticipation that it will be read -- by someone, somewhere. Simply because E.D. may not have known who comprised her audience doesn't mean that she didn't have the idea of 'audience' in mind while she was writing.
In fact, among the poems of E.D.'s found after her death were a series of letters never sent, often called "the Master Letters." These were addressed to some entity E.D. called "Master," often theorized to be her supposed lover, or another unknown actual person, or perhaps God. They represent some of her most remarkable lines (they are published separately, though they might be out of print -- not sure) -- she didn't send them, and yet there still seems to be an audience.
She kept them, along with her poems, which suggests, also, that she knew (and perhaps wanted) them to be found.
Damn straight she has teeth. There's more bite in the dashes she uses than the entire body of work of the Billy Collins' of the world.
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