Post by moira on Nov 6, 2008 17:42:33 GMT 2
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
by Emily Dickinson
submitted by Alicia Ostriker
I chose ED'S poem, The Soul Selects Her Own Society. Here is a poem I wrote to say why. Note beginnings of lines. Is there a name for this form? There must be.
To Read or Listen to The Soul Selects Her Own Society:
www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20283
More about the poet and her poems:
www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1775
by Emily Dickinson
submitted by Alicia Ostriker
I chose ED'S poem, The Soul Selects Her Own Society. Here is a poem I wrote to say why. Note beginnings of lines. Is there a name for this form? There must be.
THE SOUL SELECTS HER OWN SOCIETY
This is one of ED’s smartest or wisest poems.
Her insight here tickles; it also encourages.
Even before I knew I was a poet,
Something was promising me that my choice, not
Only of whom but of what (beauty, art, poetry) to love would be valid; that however
Unclear most things were in my world,
Love would be clear and
Simple. And soulful. (Don’t you love the s’s in that first line?
Ever notice there are four of them? And how they slow the line up? Then
Look how the next line snaps shut!
Emily reproduces, rhythmically, the careful intentionality of selection and its
Conclusion.
Then she brings politics into it, but sideways. Divinely,
“Soul” outvotes all opposition. Majority rules. Soul as majority? How improbable!
How painfully I remember, in childhood—and thereafter—always being in the minority.
Emily perhaps shared that experience. She didn’t get mad, she got even.
Rejection can be fun, and righteous, if it is your soul that is doing the rejecting.
Of course, it’s especially fun to imagine rejecting your social superiors.
Well, it is for me. But did Emily have social superiors?
No—but she did have some pompous men in her life.
Sweet and pretty fantasy to make them collectively kneel.
Open and shut case. And so feminine,
Capitalizing, for the imagery, on feminine anatomy. Those valves!
I so much enjoy the way in the
End, they turn impregnable as stone.
This is but one of the many reasons I enjoy, admire and thank
You, Emily.
To Read or Listen to The Soul Selects Her Own Society:
www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20283
More about the poet and her poems:
www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=1775