Some poets, if I am allowed the courtesy of a well-worn
cliché, are stark anachronism to the period they lived in.
Emily Dickinson was proudly
one of them and, therefore, suffered apathy from her contemporaries in her very
lifetime, to whom she stumbled upon as odd and, at times, even unpoetical. But
the world slowly woke up to the merits of this “merchant of Originality”. Her poems
don’t delve into the technical clutter of rhyme and rhythm but she, instead,
channeled her poetic faculties in mastering the character, meaning and melody
of words. Her words are more resonant and the gravity conveyed through them so
much more that no ballast would keep your mind from getting a transcendental
inflection.
Though she wrote from the seclusion of her room and lived
the life of a recluse, she had the power to perceive the finer things of life in
all its vividness.
Among other characteristics that found their sway in Dickinson’s writing,
“subtleness” I rate the most. Only few writers in the annals of English
literature have managed to keep this prized quality all along, although the
perfection is quizzically partial to only few of them. It adds a sort of tacit
splendor to the verses which are bone-dry entities themselves. Many of the
poems that I have read before gain a new accent, a fresh significance on
re-reading.
What ensured Dickinson
my all-out
adulation (and, of course, the respect from the world) is the fact
that her verses didn’t blink on subtlety in all her work and every single verse
got an equal slice of it.
Her famous poem includes: 1.
A bird came down the walk
2. Because I
could not stop for Death
3. I never lost
as much but twice
4. I taste a
liquor never brewed
Note: The writer, Gaurav Barot, is Editor-in-Chief of Heusinte Profile Labs (http://heusinte.com), an online dating profile writing firm. You can read his blogs on "http://gauravbarot.com" and "http://blog.heusinte.com"