681.1863.Don’t put up my Thread & Needle

Alternate words in parentheses:

Don’t put up my Thread & Needle –
I’ll begin to Sow
When the Birds begin to whistle –
Better stitches – so –

These were bent – my sight got crooked –
When my mind – is plain
I’ll do seams – a Queen’s endeavor
Would not blush to own –

Hems – too fine for Lady’s tracing
To the sightless Knot –
Tucks – of dainty interspersion –
Like a dotted Dot –

Leave my Needle in the furrow –
Where I put it down –
I can make the zigzag stitches
Straight – when I am strong –

Till then – dreaming (deeming) I am sewing
Fetch the seam I missed –
Closer – so I – at my sleeping – (sighing –)
Still surmise I stitch –

My take is that this poem is not about sewing or eyesight, but about ED healing from winter depression (‘When Night is almost done’, F679, ). She looks forward to spring’s abundant sunlight when her winter funk will heal and she can compose with her former facility.

An interpretation:

Don’t take my paper and pencil
I’ll begin composing
In spring when birds begin to sing,
Better poems too

My recent poems were “bent” – my mind was troubled.
When my brain clears
I’ll compose poems Royalty
Would not blush to own.

Poems too skillful for ‘my Lady’
To find slant rhymes,
Concealed thoughts interspersed
Like dotted dots

Leave my pencil on the table
Where I put it down
I can make the poems sing
When my mind clears –

Till then I’ll dream I’m composing,
Improving lines I bungled
With better words, so I, when my mind clears
Can really write.

McDermotte (2001) analyzed ED’s seasonal periodicity of poem production during eight years, 1858-1864, and concluded [brackets mine]:

“Her 8-year period of productivity was marked by two 4-year phases. The first [1858-1861] shows a seasonal pattern characterized by greater creative output in spring and summer and a lesser output during the fall and winter. This pattern was interrupted by an emotional crisis that marked the beginning of the second phase (1862-1865), a four-year sustained period of greatly heightened productivity and the emergence of a revolutionary poetic style.”

Rereading Susan Kornfeld’s explication on TPB, especially its excellent biographic sketch, compels me to agree, ED’s malady is probably vision, but wouldn’t ailing eyesight drive most poets into a sterile funk? I say “most” because John Milton (1608-1674) gradually lost his sight during the 1650s and was completely blind by 1660, yet composed ‘Paradise Lost’ from 1658-1664 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton). ED owned a copy of ”Paradise Lost” and “knew Milton’s great poem very well”.

John F. McDermott, M.D., 2001. Emily Dickinson Revisited: A Study of Periodicity in Her Work. American Journal of Psychiatry. 158: 686–690.

HOME

After commenting on Poems 1-763 (Franklin) on The Prowling Bee’, I am convinced that (virtually) all of Emily Dickinson’s (ED’s) poems have a factual historical level in addition to their various poetic levels of meaning. The reason for her instant and continuing public adulation (1890 - present) was and is, by far, poetic. She is one of the "Greats" that she always dreamed to be, despite her lifelong refusal to publish. That refusal freed her from criticism and allowed her to explore the outer boundaries of poetic power.

More than a century of scholarly research has resulted in somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 books and published academic papers about ED. A large majority of these publications focus only on the “poetic levels” of one or more of ED’s poems. Publications that consider both the “historic level” and “poetic levels” comprise a small minority. Publications that focus only on the factual history of her life probably number less than 100. (All numbers in this paragraph are my estimates.)

Unfortunately for ED’s universe of readers, these two basic levels (historical and poetic) cannot be separated into two ivory towers. Every history-level publication that I know of includes at least some discussion of the poetic level(s).

The reverse is not true. In fact, authors of the “poetry-level” school seem to avoid commenting on the historical level, sometimes admonishing that a poem must stand on its own, without concern for its historical roots. To my knowledge, there are (virtually) no published “history-level” books or articles that totally ignore ED’s poems and their poetic levels.

Of course, ED’s refusal to publish her poems was only possible because of lifelong financial and daily social/housekeeping support by her family, especially her father and sister, respectively. In addition, throughout her life, the Dickinsons hired servants, first Negro and later Irish, some of whom became much more than housekeepers for ED.

My point is that our appreciation of ED's poems can be enhanced by understanding both poetic and historical levels of her sound and sense. We impoverish ourselves if we ignore their historical base.