Welcome! Please read some of my poetry while you’re here. Even if a post is two years old, they’re being read every day. They’re all current. Feel free to join the conversation. Lastly, treat this post as a Guest Book. Offer suggestions, improvements, requests or just say Hello! If you have a question concerning poetry or a poem, click read more at the end of this sentence and fill out the form. Continue reading “You can’t put a fire out,” she said so quietly that only Ímah could hear her, and she exhaled. “You can’t. A fire goes and goes, Ímah, and we endlessly give to fire the things that ignite and burn the world. You can’t fold a flood in your pocket, but the wind finds it out, tells the cedar and fells the cedar in wind and water.”
You cannot put a Fire out—
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan—
Upon the slowest night—
You cannot fold a Flood—
And put it in a Drawer—
Because the Winds would find it out—
And tell your Cedar Floor—
[J530/FR583]
The opening paragraph above is from WistThistle: Along the Way, the second book in The Isles Quartet. In the first book and in the second book, the main character, Éhto, draws her words from a number of Dickinson’s poems, some less obviously than others. This is a different universe, where there is no Emily Dickinson, but I thought it would be fun to collaborate with her a little. I also thought I would examine the poem.
The first thing I would note are the parallels between this poem and Robert Frost’s later poem, Fire and Ice:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Frost probably was not thinking of or inspired by Dickinson, but there is a similarity between the two. Dickinson contrasts fire and water, Frost contrasts fire and ice. There is the sense in Dickinson’s poem, that the fire and the water threaten to consume some aspect of her world. Frost makes the assertion directly.
You cannot put a Fire out—
A Thing that can ignite
Can go, itself, without a Fan—
Upon the slowest night—
[I originally tried writing text over an image—a newer feature of WordPress—but it was a complete disaster (because—Wordpress). So back to text.]
Anyway, as with so many of Dickinson’s poems, we’re given the choice to read her words literally, figuratively and/or as metonymy. For example, is she literally describing Fire and Flood, or are these figuratively referring to something else? Gossip? Grief? Jealousy? Longing? The list could go on and, frankly, any one of these might make sense of the poem. That we can read the poem in so many ways contributes to the poem’s universality. Nonetheless, some of us like to guess at what Dickinson might have actually had in mind. Interestingly, in one version of the poem she wrote “No Man can put a Fire out—”
Unlike the current day, Dickinson was seemingly untroubled by the use of “man” to refer to both men and women, and according to Dickinson scholars sometimes refers to herself (as a poet) using the masculine pronoun. I write seemingly because, according to my reading so far, there’s no record of her having bridled at the use of “Man” to signify humankind. It would probably be anachronistic to think that she would. So why did she settle on “You” rather than “Man”? I don’t really have a good theory except to nevertheless assert that “You” is more universalizing than “Man”. More revealingly, I think, her impulse to use “Man” suggests that she wasn’t addressing someone specific, but that she was using “You” the same way we do—as a sort of universal you that includes ourselves without having to specifically say “I” (which she could have).
So, what is she talking about? If it’s not literally “a fire”, then it’s something like fire. Something that’s troubling her, that won’t let her be, that doesn’t need a fan or a bellows (in the sense of fanning the flames) to keep it going, but that ignites the flammable mind even on the calmest or “slowest night”. She can’t quit thinking about it. One thought leads obsessively to the next like the leaping of a flame. In short, Emily is tossing and turning. Despite the slow night, her thoughts are a conflagration that feeds what it consumes.
You cannot fold a Flood—
And put it in a Drawer—
Because the Winds would find it out—
And tell your Cedar Floor—
In the second stanza she gives us a clue as to what it might be that’s driving her to madness—something that she can put in a Drawer, and that could be a letter or even a poem. If it’s a letter, then perhaps someone has written her something that she can’t set aside, and that sends us back to speculation. Is it gossip, grief, jealousy, longing?—some news or revelation as regards a relationship? Maybe because I’m a poet, and because I know that she’s written poems that seem similar to this—They shut me up in Prose—(specifically about her urge to express herself) I like to think that this poem is a further expression of her need, if not compulsion, to write. She might as well try to “fold a Flood”—referring to the flood of inspiration that drives her poetry. In other words, she could no more silence (fold away) her urge to write, putting it in a Drawer, than “you” could fold away floodwaters. The Winds (the daily knocks of living and life) would find and drive out what is hidden in that drawer. The flood must have its outlet or it will tell (or spill) on the Cedar Floor.
And what does she mean by Cedar Floor? This is very likely a metonymy for the home. In a sense, the floor is your house and your home. Go beyond the floor and you go outside. So, in that sense, if the flame of Dickinson’s relentless thought isn’t given the outlet of poetry (if she’s forced to fold and hide it in a drawer) then these thoughts and emotions will flood her home life. “You” cannot put away the flood (the sheer drama of living) in a drawer and not expect the dam (or something) to break. The “Winds”, life’s vicissitudes, will fill the dam and cause it to rupture (to flood the home) without the outlet of self-expression/poetry.
By “tell your Cedar Floor” she may mean that what remains secretive within the poem will be made stridently “public”—or family knowledge. The flame must speak, if not in poetry then by “telling” its troubles (if that’s what they are) aloud. One can read an implicit warning in the poem: Either let me write my poetry or my need to express my internal emotional state will flood the home—will be made external. It will tell itself to the Cedar Floor in all our rooms. Why cedar? Cedar can be used for flooring but was unlikely flooring in Dickinson’s Amherst. The reference is likely Biblical in origin. Cedar was considered a beautiful and fragrant wood. In that light, what Dickinson may be suggesting (with perhaps an acid tongue) is that the flood of her emotional life, without the outlet of poetry, will disrupt that beauty and fragrance (home life’s equanimity). Allow the wrong wind to move her on a given day and Dickinson will damned well tell your precious cedar equanimity a thing or two, and see how that goes. Wouldn’t you rather I write a poem? I read anger and an implicit threat in the second stanza—and also in the first.
It’s as if someone had said to her—why don’t you put aside your poem and make us some lovely and fragrant pudding? The duties of home life and womanhood will make you forget all this literary fussing of yours. Trust us. To which she dismissively and angrily says: “You cannot put a Fire out….”
But, as I wrote earlier, you can also read this poem as her reaction to a letter she has received and that she can’t stop thinking about. Folding it and putting it away won’t help. The contents threaten to disrupt home and house, her equanimity, but the poem ends without a solution. The poet is beside herself.
I’m thirty percent done with the second book of the Isles Quartet, my four book fantasy series. For those new to the blog, this is the fantasy books I talked myself into writing when I was trying to talk my daughter into writing a fantasy novel/series. My intention is to finish Along the Way this summer, then begin the third novel this fall. I also hope to write some poetry while I’m at it.
I continue to send the first book of the fantasy quartet to agents and it continues to be rejected, whether for the quality of my novel, my queries or both is hard to say. I did spend some time researching the writing of the perfect query letter and tried my hand at writing the perfect query letter. That got me nowhere. At this point, if someone were to tell me that I will never get an agent because my queries are terrible, I would believe them. I’ve quit trying. My query letters, nowadays, amount to: Hi. Hope all is well. Weather’s great. Here’s my book. Read it.
I do want to mention that my first novel—a novel that takes place in Vermont with elements of magical realism (depending on your point of view) and poetry—was published by the wonderful, independent publisher Tara Caribou of Raw Earth Ink. I have a great Raw Earth sticker that Tara sent me, but I still haven’t decided where to put it because I like it so much. Truly. Tara has been wonderfully supportive of me and my writing, so I don’t get to complain too much. She essentially designed the book cover, and I love it.
You can find this book and many other books at her website, including three collections of her own poetry Fallen Star Rising, four, Euphoria in Blue and the collection Sketches: Fables, Allegories, and Parables. You can also find samples of her writing there. As of writing this post, I’ve ordered all four books from Lulu.
I’ve also been reading the Elemental Logic fantasy novels by Laurie J Marks. I want to write a post on the first of those novels before long. In the meantime, I’m open to analyzing another poem of Emily Dickinson’s. If you have a request, mention it in the comment section. (My last several analyses of Dickinson have been requests.) Other than that, I hope all is well and the weather is great. Read my book.
& From the back cover of Tiny House, Big Mountain
With her ex-husband imprisoned for embezzlement, the pampered Virginia Fleetman relocates to an inherited mountainside property expecting to live in a newly-finished vacation home. Instead she finds a half-finished foundation with the builder Drew Tippet and her twelve-year-old daughter Cody living inside. Drew has been planning a new life too, but after the checks stopped coming, she is forced to make the basement a refuge.
When Virginia orders Drew and her daughter out, a cascade of life-altering events inextricably binds them together. Cody’s visions and premonitions, after nearly drowning, make her wonder if anyone, including her own mother, believes her. Drew, with a broken back and ankle–and a worsening dependence on pain medication–struggles to forgive herself. Above all, if they’re to have a home before winter, all three must work together to build a house atop the foundation.
Tiny House, Big Mountain is a coming-of-age novel set in the fictional town of Brookway, Vermont where magical realism is woven with betrayal, addiction, and recovery through the bonds of friendship, family, and community.
This is something I wrote this morning—a tale within the tale of my second book: WistThistle: Along the Way. A little background: Éhto is the main character throughout the four books of WistThistle, like Ged in Earthsea. Duni doesn’t speak the language of Éhto, but Éhto speaks Duni’s language and is translating Duni’s story for Ímah, the brother of her husband. Duni, who is in love with Ímah, is trying to explain to Ímah, in her way, why she has made the choices she made. Part of the novel’s world building is the language itself, hence the tone of the story’s language.
Duni began with a sing-song voice, saying. “Iy’ta èþé ürio!” which meant, Speak, will I, of the raven!
Then Éhto translated. “And Raven did not always fly; and Raven was not always hoarse of voice, and Raven was not always black of eye. Raven was a beautiful woman—fair and lithesome. And it was for her beauty that men came to seize her, to possess her, to say of her that she was theirs and obeyed no other.
“Ezū’ta èþé Bodfyil!” said Duni, as though she sang, which meant, Speak, will I, of the sorcerer!
And Éhto said, “And the sorcerer, who also was a King, possessed a cape that was of black feathers. And when the cape was worn by the Sorcerer King, then did the cape become great wings that carried him to Raven. Though she did not desire him, he took her against her will. Then did she swear that she would never obey him, but would take his cape and fly away. The cape belongs to me, he answered, and should you ever wear it, then it shall tear you limb from limb. But Raven said, if I am made to obey you, then shall my heart be torn limb from limb, and so in defiance of the Sorcerer King, she put on the cape and the cape tore her limb from limb until she was only the black wings, the black beak, and the black claws of the cape. She and the cape were made one being. Then did Raven fly from the Sorcerer King, and she said, My choice! My choice and no others! But Raven still possessed her voice, and it was the most beautiful voice in all the world.”
“Éloa’ta èþé Najati!” said Duni, as though she sang, which meant, Sing, will I, of the enchantress!
And Éhto said, “The Enchantress heard of a black bird. The bird’s voice was more beautiful than any other’s. And so that she might command Raven’s voice, the Enchantress went into the forest to capture her. With a magical art that was like the gray mists of morning, she took Raven in the net of her spells. Then did Raven swear that she would never sing for her, but would escape the cage and fly away. The Enchantress said to Raven: Though you may escape the cage, your voice cannot. But Raven said, if I am made to obey you, then shall my heart also be caged, and so one day Raven flew from her cage and left behind her voice. Then when she spoke, her noise was a hoarse caw, and yet her voice, still within the cage, spoke aloud, saying, My choice! My choice and no others!”
“Uéi otoza’ta séða!” said Duni, almost in song, for with her speech she kept rhythm with a hand on her flank, which meant, Here me, I speak of Death.
And Éhto said, “All living things know and fear death—all but Raven! When death came, Raven was unafraid. The moth hid among the thorns. The skoko burrowed into the earth. The mother fled with her child. The harvestman abandoned his field, but Raven did not fly away. Raven waited even as the winds turned black the leaves, and swept them away. Then Death stood beneath Raven, holding before him the cage made by the Enchantress, for he had long ago claimed the Enchantress, saying: Hear me, Raven, I come now to carry you away. And Raven answered: If I obey, O Death, my spirit shall be caged forevermore. And then—for Raven felt Death’s chill upon her—she flew into into the hollow of death’s left eye, to see what was to see within death’s skull; and there she saw an infinity of great beauty—the stars, sun and moon of our and every world— for all that we see and know is conceived of and known by Death. Raven was greatly moved, but she would not let her spirit be trapped in Death’s cage. She took out her eyes, hiding one by the emptiness of Death’s left eye and the other by Death’s right eye. By this means was her spirit able to find her way back to life. By this means, through Raven’s eyes, do we all, for when Death calls, our spirits fly into Death’s left eye and return anew—remade and reborn—through Death’s right eye. And thus it was that Raven flew out of Death’s right eye and returned to the limb of the tree—reborn and with eyes as black as Death. My choice! she cried. My choice and no others! Death bowed and put aside the cage. And so it is that Raven alone, having traded her eyes for Death’s, remembers the many lives that she and all of us have lived. That is Raven’s wisdom.”
I’m now reading Rebecca Patterson’s book “Emily Dickinson’s Imagery” (published posthumously). Patterson was the first Dickinson scholar (if I’m reading the preface correctly) who, in 1951, posited Dickinson’s lesbian attachments, which was greeted just as you would expect—with shock and rejection by some and revelatory acceptance by others. As Margaret Freeman writes: “[Patterson’s] hypothesis that Emily’s ‘lover’ was female rested on just as much evidence (or lack of it) as other, ‘more acceptable’ theories that have variously identified Charles Wadsworth, George Gould, Edward Hunt, or Samuel Bowles as the (male) object of the poet’s affections…”
But it wasn’t this passage that I wanted to share, but one of the longest endnotes in the book (the best thing in the book so far, and it’s a good book if you like this sort of thing). I found it so engaging that I thought I’d share it in all its glory:
Lydia Maria Child, Letters from New York (1848), p. 106. The name of this pioneer feminist was introduced, apparently by Emily Dickinson herself, at the first of her two meetings with T.W. Higginson. The poet even essayed a little feminist joke, which wholly escaped her visitor. Higginson reported with solemn bafflement that after mentioning her domestic duties she added, “‘& people must have puddings’ this very dreamily, as if they were comets—and so she makes them” (L342a). Such a redoubtable feminist should have remembered Sarah Grimké’s scornful attack on the male dictum that “She that knoweth how to compound a pudding is more desirable than she who skillfully compounds a poem” (The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women, 1838). Grimké must have gotten her pudding and her title from “The Equality of the Sexes” by “Constantia” (Judith Sargent Murray), who demanded (Massachusetts Magazine March-April 1790) whether it was “reasonable that a candidate for immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend at eternity in contemplating the works of the Deity, should at present be so degraded as to be allowed no other ideas, than those which are suggested by the mechanism of the pudding?” Royal Tyler’s Van Rough approved the general opinion “that if a woman knew how to make a pudding, and to keep herself out of fire and water, she knew enough for a wife,” (The Contrast, act 1, scene 2, a play almost certainly known to Emily Dickinson). Of course it all went back to Samuel Johnson, who saw the necessity of asserting that “My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.” Best known to Emily was Charlotte Brontë’s famous diatribe against those “more privileged fellow-creatures” who thought women should “confine themselves to making puddings” and the like trivial occupations (Jane Eyre), although she could not have read Elizabeth Barett’s attack on the “pudding-making and sock-darning theory” of women’s activities noticed earlier. There was something about making puddings that set a feminist’s teeth on edge, and Emily expected Higginson to know it.
Can you just imagine Emily reading that sarcastic little dictum that “She that knoweth how to compound a pudding is more desirable than she who skillfully compounds a poem”!
Of course, if we treat “pudding” metonymically (which Dickinson probably was), then it can mean all sorts of trivial things. (Her barb was directed at people, after all, not just men.) People must eat—granted; but a pudding is not that. A pudding is what we gobble down whilst gossiping over that little tramp, Miss Littleslip, who dared to show her ankles during Reverend Snipple’s catechism. “If you must write your little poems, Emily, then why not go to your room? Or you could make yourself useful? Why don’t you bring us a little pudding.”
It’s going to be my new motto.
“& people must have their puddings.“
The Color of the Grave is Green—
The Outer Grave—I mean—
You would not know it from the Field—
Except it own a Stone—
To help the fond—to find it—
Too infinite asleep
To stop and tell them where it is—
But just a Daisy—deep—
The Color of the Grave is white—
The outer Grave—I mean—
You would not know it from the Drifts—
In Winter—till the Sun—
Has furrowed out the Aisles—
Then—higher than the Land
The little Dwelling Houses rise
Where each—has left a friend—
The Color of the Grave within—
The Duplicate—I mean—
Not all the snows c'd make it white—
Not all the Summers—Green—
You've seen the Color—maybe—
Upon a Bonnet bound—
When that you met it with before—
The Ferret—Cannot find—
[FR424/J411]
This is actually one of Dickinson’s more straightforward poems, and another request. The mystery is less in trying to sort out “nonrecoverable deletions”—missing grammar that makes allusions a guessing game—than the more normal game of interpreting imagery (in this case colors). The one real curve ball in the poem is in sussing out the meaning of Duplicate, but we’ll get to that. The poem is six stanzas that can be divided neatly into thirds, each third reflecting on a color of the grave.
The Color of the Grave is Green—
The Outer Grave—I mean—
You would not know it from the Field—
Except it own a Stone—
To help the fond—to find it—
Too infinite asleep
To stop and tell them where it is—
But just a Daisy—deep—
Dickinson establishes the poem’s stake, as she often does, in the first line. Color will be the nexus round which the poem’s meaning is adjudicated. The color of the grave is green, she says, and she will devote the next seven lines giving us context for that color. It is the color of the field, presumably—the grass, the flower’s leaf, and perhaps the limb of a weeping willow. Green is the color of life. We might be inclined to forget the dead. Being green ourselves, in a sense—being alive— our understanding of death can only be of the “outer grave” and will be colored/covered by that. If not for the stone, you would not know the burial plot (or the dead) from the field. They otherwise vanish both figuratively and literally. Green is the color of spring and vigor and, in that sense, we’re not meant to be thinking of the dead. The fact of our aliveness separates us truly comprehending death. The youthful/vibrant color of green, of life and growth, is a barrier. Only the outer grave is knowable or discoverable, and that is only discoverable—by the fond—because of the Stone. The dead are too infinite asleep to be guides. In that regard, the only thing that tells where the dead is, is the daisy—alive and whose roots go deep. The suggestion, perhaps, is that the daisy’s realm is both in life and death. The daisy alone comprehends both life and death, being half above the burial ground and half among the dead—and so can tell where the dead lie. As for ourselves, what we comprehend of the daisy is the green of its stem and leaves, and the flower itself (fed by death).
The Color of the Grave is white—
The outer Grave—I mean—
You would not know it from the Drifts—
In Winter—till the Sun—
Has furrowed out the Aisles—
Then—higher than the Land
The little Dwelling Houses rise
Where each—has left a friend—
The next two stanzas move us from green to white, from youth to age, when the skin becomes pale and the hair gray. Now we return to graveyard in old age. As in us, so in the world. Youth and growth—green—is forever behind us. The color of the grave is white, the color of the marble stone and of bones. We begin to know it from the field. We are no longer greenly oblivious to the grave. The sun, which had been our ally in youth, a symbol of warmth, life and regeneration, becomes the teller (rather than the stone and daisy), telling us ‘where it is‘, where death lies. The sun ‘furrows the the Aisles‘, showing us the path from which cannot escape, the aisle that leads us to our own death and subsidence. We are shown the piles of dirt marking where the newly dead are buried. In each is “left a friend” in their little “Dwelling Houses”. They are “Friends” because they were of our own generation and have become the changeless generation of the dead. The piles of dirt will melt into the coffins as the coffin itself breaks and dissolves along with our bodies—all of it subsiding like the melting snow. White is the color of snow, of the grave stone, of the bones, of the life’s melting and dissolution.
The Color of the Grave within—
The Duplicate—I mean—
Not all the snows c'd make it white—
Not all the Summers—Green—
You've seen the Color—maybe—
Upon a Bonnet bound—
When that you met it with before—
The Ferret—Cannot find—
The final stanza takes us into the dwelling houses. Dickinson doesn’t say the color of the grave is black. She calls the color “The Duplicate”. She says that we’ve maybe seen the color “upon a Bonnet bound”, such as a mourner might wear, but this is only a duplicate of the color within the grave—the color of the bonnet is in no way as final as that terrifying absolute of the grave. The living may wear the color, but the color remains a mere facsimile/duplicate. The color is unnameable. And that is the truly terrifying twist in this poem. And the genius of the poem. She cannot name it. By it’s very nature, the color has no name. To even have a name places it within our world. The color she describes is the color of absence—an absence that is no color, so unconditional in its nameless annihilation that it can only be like a color that you’ve seen elsewhere. The color even annihilates its own name. And not all the summers, now, past or future, can undo that annihilation. Not all the snows, not all the symbolism we attach to white—not the shroud, the white of the sun, poetry, the robe of Christ or the white pages of religion’s rhetoric (in other poems she has referred to her poetry as “snow”)—can undo that color, that abnegation of being, that denial and complete negation of the the world itself. Maybe you’ve seen it, she writes. That you’ve seen the color on the bonnet, in other words, is no guarantee that you’ve actually understood or comprehended that last and final “Color of the Grave”. Maybe. If you’ve understood her poem—then maybe “you’ve met with it before”. And yet, can you really? No matter how deep the ferret digs—she writes as though changing her mind—you will never find the color she’s describing. If you find it, if you think you’ve dug deeply enough, then you haven’t found it. What the ferret, or you, could find will never be the color she’s describing. This is no ride in a carriage with death personified. To see this color is to be annihilated. You may comprehend this color in a mourner’s bonnet but, to truly see this color, is to be dead.
up in Vermont | March 4 2024
I know those strains you’re whistling now
You hear the music too—
Seductive little madrigals—
O yes, I’m sure you do.
You talk to me about the starlings
I say it’s chickadees.
Let’s both of us debate the birds
And never mind the bees—
The bee that flies melodiously
To kiss the neighbor’s flower;
The neighbor’s hummingbird that sips
The nectar from the bower.
We both of us know that refrain.
Our better angels wring
Their hands all while we hum the tunes
Those other angels sing.
I know those strains
by me, Patrick Gillespie April Fools 2024
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What do you do that’s different from what an agent does?
Well, first of all, we don’t represent novels. We represent queries. Now that agents are joining publishers in only accepting solicited queries, authors are going to need us—pre-agents—to submit queries to agents. Our job is to get you the agent who will get you the publisher who will buy you the bestseller placement your book deserves. And to get there, it all starts with the perfect query. You can pay for query writing workshops and seminars and there are many of them, or you can work with Agent², enjoying a lifelong partnership submitting queries to agents.
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Don’t genre and last name dictate where books go on the shelves?
Think of it as the shelf in the reader’s mind—their “favorite books” bookshelf. You want your book to be just like the books that are already there. That tells both agents and publishers that you know what your job is.
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Your agency represents queries, but do you have advice as regards novels?
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up in Vermont | April 1 2024
The first time I read the Earthsea Trilogy, I was fifteen years old and on the outer banks of North Carolina. Short of the Azores, that might have been the best place to read the original trilogy—on an island with the Atlantic washing the sands outside my door. At that point, that was all that Le Guin had written of Earthsea. I was a fifteen year old reading a YA series (as Le Guin herself describes it) about a 19 year old Wizard (and later a younger—16 or 17 year old?—Tenar). Le Guin doesn’t commit, simply saying that Tenar (as central to the series as the Wizard Ged) was ‘not even that old’. In a sense, I was the perfect age, reading a fantasy series written for me.
I still have the books that I read over 40 years ago—the same issue as the books above.
Close to ten years after I had read the original trilogy, Le Guin published Tehanu (for Le Guin, it was 18 years). Tehanu is a horse of a different color. Firstly, Le Guin decided the book wasn’t going to be a YA novel, but one for adults and with adult themes and secondly, she set out to right the perception that her initial trilogy (if it wasn’t misogynist) took a dim view of women in an uncritically patriarchal fantasy world. The men were wizards of great schooling, power and wisdom while women were, at best, smelly village witches living in dank, smelly little houses who pedaled deceit and ignorance. “There is a saying on Gont, Weak as woman’s magic, and there is another saying, Wicked as woman’s magic,” Le Guin wrote.
Le Guin changed all that with Tehanu. She would write:
[A woman’s magic] goes down deep. It’s all roots. It’s like an old blackberry thicket. And a wizard’s power’s like a fir tree, maybe, great and tall and grand, but it’ll blow right down in a storm. Nothing kills a blackberry bramble. [Tehanu 100]
This is spoken by the Witch Moss (who was still smelly) but whose mythology in the series, as a whole, undergoes a considerable transformation. This revision of women’s place in the Earthsea universe was beautifully written about in a paper called Witches, Wives and Dragons: The Evolution of the Women in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea—An OverviewUrsula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea—An Overview.
The point I would make, in regards to this, is that to read Earthsea as a unified vision, in the same manner as Lord of the Rings, is going to leave the reader disappointed. There are any number of critiques by readers bemoaning the “feminist revision” of the initial three books—the loss of the archetypal hierarchies easily recognizable from the fairy tales of the past thousand years. But if you’re going to read Earthsea this way, then you’ll likely be disappointed, wondering why she ruined the first three novels.
What makes Earthsea fascinating is to see how an author revisits a world that was ostensibly complete. Le Guin probably never planned to write another Earthsea book after completing the initial trilogy. Normally, the author drops hints and clues as to what’s to come. This propels the reader forward. Plot threads need to be tied up. But Le Guin tied up all her plot threads. Ged had lost his power. Like King Arthur, he was carried off into the mists of legend.
What makes the latter three books fascinating is to see how an author re-enters her own world, and radically transforms it. She can’t rewrite. The initial books are done and written, and yet she has to make the radical revision feel organic—as if the themes of the latter books were there, all along. Her solution is to make their very “completeness” a central problem. In this case, she treats their completeness as an artifact of Earthsea’s patriarchal bias. They only seem complete because it was the male perspective, in a sense, that was telling the story. It’s a neat feat, since she, Le Guin, was the author of the first three books, but the latter three books treat this perspective as the “evil” that threatens the latter books.
Melanie Rawls, the author of the paper cited above, puts it this way:
The “author” of the first three books did not know why women’s magic was weak or wicked, or she gives no explanation in the books, presenting that information as everyday fact. The “author” was unaware of the history of the founding of Roke. The author of the first three books seems to know the nature of dragons, and it is a nature familiar to us from our western myths, epics and folktales. In these books, dragons are indisputably male.
And then later:
The latter three books, however, demonstrate how much the earlier “author” does not know about dragons. The dragons of the last three books are female: the Woman of Kemay, Tehanu, Orm Irian.
It’s in that sense, in my opinion, that Earthsea should be read, as a fascinating and archetypal story of the author’s inner journey, her revision of self (perhaps redemption). You’re reading the work of an author who has turned her inner journey into an archetypal fantasy novel. That said, it’s a curious thing (and I speculate) but the author Le Guin seems to favor men over women. Even when she expresses a “feminist” critique of the first three novels, one gets the sense that she continues to adore her male characters (which is why I find some of the criticism leveled against her latter books—by readers who resent the intrusion of feminism—to be ironic if not oblivious). She does this even as she turns two of her female characters into goddess-like all-powerful beings—namely dragons—as if to balance the male power of the earlier novels. Her impulse to adore men—to attentively portray their struggles, foibles, tenderness, and nobility—remains, while her suspicion of female characters also subtly persists. I don’t consider that a failing. It’s refreshing, especially when compared to Tolkien, who absurdly idealizes women (if he bothers to write about them at all). It’s another reason that I find criticism of her “feminism” to be misplaced. Le Guin seems to possess a well-tested knowledge of female treachery— even in a male dominated fantasy world. She is disinclined to treat women as helpless victims. Speaking through Tenar, she scolds the young Kargish princess Seserakh, instructing her to get her act together and become the Queen, the co-ruler of Earthsea, that she is meant to be.
Yesterday I was out grocery shopping and was waiting to pick up my wife at the bus depot (returning from Europe), and killed some time at Barnes & Noble. The Sci-Fi Fantasy section was my playground, and I was there for one reason. I wanted to see how fantasy authors were writing their novels—stylistically. That meant me starting on the left and going right. I read, on average, one paragraph from each book, opened at random. What I discovered is what I had already suspected. All of them are writing in a modern vernacular that, apart from descriptions of swords and ox carts, could just as easily be narratives set in the modern day. Of those on the shelves, none of the authors made a discernible effort, at least to me, to shift their language to a less modern vernacular. Modern colloquialisms abounded. For example, one author used the phrase “despite the fact” in the middle of a medieval battle. The expression comes with a whiff of cliché but, more damningly, reads like the anachronistic narration of a second tier documentary. I like to compare the writing of fantasies to costuming in historical dramas. (One of my favorite Youtubers, Burnadette Banner, annually rates historical dramas in terms of their faithfulness to period clothing.)
The writing of modern fantasy authors, for me, compares to historical dramas that pay zero attention to period clothing. And music has the same disorienting effect. Modern background music in medieval movies is one thing, but when musicians show up, within the world of the movie, and start playing utterly anachronistic music on modern musical instruments, that really makes me—unhappy. Now I admit that we can’t have movies set in the medieval time (let alone novels) written in Middle English or Anglo Saxon (although that would be pretty cool). It would also be pretty cool if time travelers were actually confronted with the languages spoken in a given period. Go back to King Arthur’s court and good luck to you if you don’t speak Anglo Saxon or the Latin of Rome at minimum. And don’t expect to see any suits of armor (à la the movie Excalibur). Suits of armor wouldn’t show up for another several hundred years. But, in my opinion, the two fantasy authors who have written the standards of the genre, JRR Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin, both adopted a more rhetorical (oratorical style) that contributed to their world building (also worth mentioning in this regard is Micheal Moorecock’s Elric of Melniboné, although Moorecock’s stab at linguistic world building can sound more like Dungeon & Dragons than literature.). Just to really show you what I mean, and rather than pick on any particular, contemporary fantasy author, I’m going to take a paragraph from Le Guin and Tolkien, then rewrite them the way our modern fantasy novelists would write them:
Ged spent three days in that village of the West Hand, recovering himself, and making ready a boat built not of spells and sea-wrack, but of sound wood well pegged and caulked, with a stout mast and sail of her own, that he might sail easily and sleep when he needed. Like most boats of the North and the Reaches she was clinker-built, with planks over lapped and clenched one upon the other for strength in the high seas; every part of her was sturdy and well-made. Ged reinforced her wood with deep-inwoven charms, for thought he might go far in that boat. [From the opening of Chapter 9, Iffish, Wizard of Earthsea]
And our modern fantasy novelist:
Ged spent three days recovering in West Hand. He pegged and caulked his boat, getting it ready. It wasn’t like his old boat. His old boat had been held together by spells. It was constructed with good wood. It had a strong mast and a sail that was made from cloth. He would sleep easily when he needed to. Like most in the North and the Reaches, the boat was clinker built. The planks overlapped and were drawn tightly together so they’d be strong. The boat was sturdy and made well. Ged wove charms into the wood because he thought he would use the boat for a long time.
And from Tolkien:
Now the Captains of the West led their host towards the City, and folk saw them advance in line upon line, flashing and glinting in the sunrise and rippling like silver. And so they came before the Gateway and halted a furlong from the walls. As yet no gates had been set up again, but a barrier was laid across the entrance to the City, and there stood men at arms in silver and black with long swords drawn. Before the barrier stood Faramir the Steward, and Húrin Warden of the Keys, and other captains of Gondor, and the Lady Éowyn of Rohan with Elfhelm the Marshal and many knits of the Mark; and upon either side of the Gate was a great press of fair people in raiment of many colours and garlands of flowers. [p. 244 The Return of the King]
And our modern fantasy novelist:
At sunrise, the Captains of the West marched lines of soldiers towards the city. They flashed and rippled like silver. The soldiers stopped at the gates and were several hundred feet from the walls. New gates weren’t up yet, but there was a barrier at the entrance and there were armed men in silver and black with long swords. There was the steward Faramir and Húrin, who was Warden of the Keys. There was Lady Éowyn and Marshal Elfhelm, who were from Rohan. And then there were the Captains of Gondor. They all stood in front of the gate with crowds of happy people on both sides. They were wearing colorful clothes and garlands of flowers.
What I’ve done is to remove nearly all of the hypotactic and syndetic writing, the inversions, the nominal phrasing (the prepositional phrases), and archaic words like “upon” and the obsolete usage of the prepositional “for”. In short, I tried to remove all the rhetorical devices that signaled a more formal, archaic or heightened syntax. The revisions are okay. They get the job done. Most importantly, they tell the story. The revised paragraphs are typical, for example, of what you might find in Brandon Sanderson’s many (and successful) fantasy novels. George RR Martin, who I’d consider the finest writer contemporary author of fantasy, splits the baby. He gives to his characters a slightly more archaic/heightened rhetoric, while narrating in an ostensibly modern vernacular. For example, the narrator:
“picking the way”, “muttered to himself”, the sarcastic “but try and tell”. The phrase “but try and tell” belongs to a modern vernacular and is the least likely to be found in anything by Tolkien or Le Guin (let alone the medieval period). The other phrases probably also don’t belong in any medieval world. I don’t recall that Gollum ever “muttered to himself”, though that would have been a likely description. On the other hand, the destrier (the warhorse) is “great“—an adjective that is a wholly owned subsidiary of the fantasy genre. And many are the “unwary” who sojourn in medieval fantasy worlds. But watch what happens when a character from GOT speaks:
While the character’s language doesn’t make use of the rhetorical heightening typical of Tolkien and Le Guin, he also doesn’t let anything conspicuously modern slip in. “It steals up on you” is a nicely antiquated phrase. “It burns, it does” and “Peaceful, like” is some nice cockney, “old world” signaling. Hollywood has long associated the English accent (and cockney specifically) with the old world and so Martin goes there. All well and fine. Ultimately, Martin settles on a sort of mid-Atlantic formality (for lack of a better description). He assumes a heightened literary style that avoids common colloquialisms (and the modern vernacular in general) but also largely steers clear of archaic syntax and grammar. Largely. He still peppers his modern prose with little Dungeon & Dragony gestures: “[He] slipped his dirk free of its sheath.” If Martin had fully committed to writing like this (like Le Guin or Tolkien) then it might sound less, to my ears, like a Dungeon Master remembering, every now and then, to throw in some old-school prepositional phrases (for atmosphere).
But there was a reason I was browsing through the fantasy section. In my own fantasy novel(s), I’ve gone full Tolkien and Le Guin. And how. And I’ve done it because, mainly, I enjoy it. The fantasy genre gives me the excuse to write in a lovely, heightened, rhetorical style that is a bit like poetry. It’s forgivable in the realm of dragons, so why not? It’s part of the world building. And maybe that’s the reason modern fantasy novels disappoint me so much. At least try. Why, with such a golden opportunity, do today’s fantasy novelists write in such a modern and generic prose? Translate the Iliad or Odyssey into this same prose and most, if not all of the magic and nobility is lost.
On the other hand, they’re published and I’m not. So there’s that.
I’m ready to try my hand at another Dickinson poem.
Pick one out!
This was a Poet —
It is That
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings —
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door —
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it — before —
Of Pictures, the Discloser —
The Poet — it is He —
Entitles Us — by Contrast —
To ceaseless Poverty —
Of portion — so unconscious —
The Robbing — could not harm —
Himself — to Him — a Fortune —
Exterior — to Time —
[FR 446/J448]
So. I’ve read a second interpretation of this poem, now by Cristanne Miller (the first by Helen Vendler) and both interpretations seem to fudge the final quatrain. Both seem to muddle. The reasons for the confusion, as with many of Dickinson’s more abstruse poems, are the “nonrecoverable deletions” (as Cristanne Miller nicely describes them). Essentially, because of the constraints of form, Dickinson chooses to delete connectives and syntax that would guide a reader’s understanding.
This was a Poet —
It is That [poetry]
Distills amazing sense
From ordinary Meanings —
And Attar so immense
My impression is that most readers interpret That as referring to the Poet. This would be Miller’s interpretation and, unless I’m mistaken, Vendler’s. I actually read That as referring not to the poet but to poetry in general. Normally this would be a four line stanza. R.W. Franklin notes that these lines are made four lines in “derivative collections” and Miller prints the poem this way (in her book A Poet’s Grammar). This makes the first line read: This was a Poet — It is That. Printing the poem this way makes it more tempting to associate That with the Poet. But if we print it according to Dickinson’s own lineation, then the assertion This was a Poet stands by itself. The statement is in the past tense and I read it, in a sense, as an epitaph. I read the poem as like a scene in a play. We’re accompanying Dickinson (or the speaker) on a nice afternoon’s walk through the graveyard (actually a thing in Victorian times). As we accompany Dickinson, she pauses at a grave stone we might have overlooked. She says,”This was a Poet.” Recognizing the poet’s grave, she then is reminded of his poetry and says, almost to herself, “It is That, that distills amazing sense from Ordinary meanings”. In her book “Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them”, Miller notes that in his “Letter to a Young Contributor”, Higginson wrote, “Literature is attar of roses, one distilled drop from a million blossoms”. This was the letter that prompted Dickinson to write Higginson and suggests that Dickinson’s own imagery was inspired by Higginson.
And Attar so immense
From the familiar species
That perished by the Door —
We wonder it was not Ourselves
Arrested it — before —
Of Pictures, the Discloser —
That Dickinson uses the word “immense” suggests Higginson’s “million blossoms”. Also worth noting, I think, is the notion that what “perished by the Door” was made into attar. Keep that in the back of your mind. The narrator, standing by the gravestone, next expresses appreciation for the genius of poetry. The poet’s skill is such that she wonders why we don’t ourselves “arrest”/grasp/comprehend what poetry, after the fact, makes self-evident. Poetry is “Of Pictures” (possibly meaning imagery) the “Discloser”. That is, poetry is the art that reveals truth through the language of imagery, archetype, and symbol.
So far, so good. It's the last third of the poem where matters get muddled. [Note: For an interpretation I find more convincing and simpler than my own, be sure to read the comment section; then decide for yourself.]
The Poet — it is He —
Entitles Us — by Contrast —
To ceaseless Poverty —
Of portion — so unconscious —
The Robbing — could not harm —
Himself — to Him — a Fortune —
Exterior — to Time —
Now, here’s my thought: If we keep in mind that Dickinson, at the very outset of the poem distinguishes between two subjects, the Poet (deceased) and “Poetry”—the That that makes the perished into attar—we have the makings of a contrast. Dickinson even spells it out. “By Contrast—” she writes. The speaker returns our attention to the deceased Poet (after describing poetry’s power). That is, unlike his or her poetry, by contrast, the Poet will not be made into attar. The Poet has perished. It’s possible to break down these lines into three separate assertions:
The Poet — it is He —
Entitles Us — by Contrast —
To ceaseless Poverty —
The death of the Poet, in contrast to his poetry, is a cause of ceaseless Poverty. Ceaseless because his death is final. Dickinson isn’t referring to the The Poet, but to Death. Then she moves on to her next thought:
Of portion — so unconscious —
The Robbing — (!)
In a highly compressed fashion, she is accusing Death of thoughtlessness and indifference. Of portion, she says sarcastically, Death is unconscious/thoughtless/indifferent. In other words, she expresses dismay at Death’s indifference to the “portion” that is really being robbed from us—not just a man but a great artist—a Shakespeare, a Keats or a Brontë. She expresses dismay at Death’s indifference to who he robs from us.
— could not harm —
Himself — to Him — a Fortune —
Exterior — to Time —
Now she moves onto her third thought. And here, if I’m interpreting the poem correctly, Dickinson’s final lines remind me very much of the closing lines to her poem, Because I could not stop for Death:
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
There’s that same sense of timelessness—not the timelessness of paradise, but of awareness exiled from time’s rituals—a nothing that is both death and deathless. That is, just as with the narrator in Because I could not stop for Death, the Poet’s centuries feel shorter than the day. The conclusion just as laden with contradiction—but also consistent. According to biographers, Dickinson refused to “accept Christ” (and presumably the afterlife that went along with that) but she also seemed unwilling to accept the death of the soul. This may disappoint some metaphysical naturalists among my readers (and you know who you are) but asking Dickinson, in her era and culture, to throw the soul out with the Christian bathwater, is probably asking too much.
Though Death has robbed us of the Poet, Death cannot rob the Poet of his “Fortune”. The Poet takes what is most precious about him with him (Dickinson was untroubled, according to Vendler, by the use of He/Him in reference to herself as a poet). He takes his creative genius—his Fortune—into that deathless death that is exterior to time. Death can rob us of the poet’s creative genius, but cannot rob the Poet himself. “[Death] could not harm—Himself [the Poet]”. To Him—to himself—the poet’s Fortune is now exterior to time. Yet one is very hesitant to read this as triumphing over Death. Dickinson ends the poem, as with Because I could not stop for Death, with irreconcilable contradiction. She is both deceased and conscious. And that might be part of the point. The contradiction, the dissonance, is part of the tragedy.
Edit: It’s tempting to read “Exterior — to Time” as the poet’s poetry triumphing over time. In other words, his fortune—his poetry—is exterior to death and time. The problem with this reading is that it seemingly contradicts the speaker’s earlier assertion that He entitles us to “ceaseless poverty”. One has to explain this apparent contradiction. My own way around this is to treat her final lines as a reference to the deceased Poet rather than to His or Her poetry (and Because I could not stop may give us a precedence for such a reading).
Worth mentioning is that she could be describing herself in This was a Poet—commenting on her own death. In this sense, This was a Poet and Because I could not stop for Death can be read as describing the same event—her own death. The former is from the perspective of the living, reflecting on the poet’s death, while the latter is from the perspective of the deceased poet.
I haven’t said much about Vendler or Miller’s interpretations because they’re so different from mine. I don’t know how to summarize their readings (and frankly find them somewhat scattershot and confusing). How exactly does Vendler land on plagiarism, for example? What and where does that come from? Vendler summarizes the closing couplet this way:
“Dickinson points out the degree to which the Poet’s capacity to notice, to notice everything, and then disclose His “Pictures,” makes us notice things too… And third, Dickinson points out the indifference of the Poet to us (or to anyone else), an indifference arising not from self-esteem but from His (to him unconscious) Fortune. He is so unaware of the grace bestowed on Him, of the great “Portion” of wealth He has inherited, that no robbing from his worth can harm Him (plagiarism of His work by others does not affect our recognition of the true Poet). He moves in a world (in Dickinson’s great phrase) “Exterior — to Time — “… He is as unaware of Time (and its obverse, Eternity) as He is of us. [p. 213-214]
So you can see how different our interpretations are. Vendler doesn’t even interpret the poem as being that of a deceased Poet (and this despite describing the opening line as a past-tense epitaph in the very first sentence of her analysis). According to Vendler, if I understand her correctly, Dickinson is describing the archetypal experience(?) of reading poetry. It seems to me that Vendler spends less time interpreting the poem than ‘biographizing’. Miller interprets the poem as Dickinson expressing (for lack of a better term) gender resentment(?). She reads Dickinson as addressing male poets (and not the Platonic Idea of the Poet) in her use of He, and frames the contrast as one of “difference and of strength”.
“As a younger sister of a favored son and as a consciously female poet, however, Dickinson might well differentiate herself with some resentment from the poet who creates unconsciously and with ease, the man of ceaseless, inherited cultural wealth. Evidently during this time when she wrote or at least copied “This was a Poet” for her own safekeeping, the contrast between herself as artist and the world was particularly vivid. In the fascicle where she binds this poem, Dickinson precedes it with two poems on similar differences. In the first, “It would have starved a Gnat — / To live so small as I — ” (612), the speaker brags that she can live on even less that a gnat, and without his privileges to fly to more sustaining places or to die. In the poem immediately preceding “This was a Poet,” the speaker is a “Girl” poet “shut… up in Prose — ” by uncomprehending adults, whom she escapes “easy as a Star” by willing herself to be free (613). Later in the fascicle Dickinson includes “It was given to me by the Gods” (454), a poem about another “little Girl” far richer with her handful of “Gold” than anyone could guess and richer than anyone else is: “The Difference — made me bold —” she confides. These are poems of difference and of strength, whether these qualities stem from unique starvation or mysterious wealth.” [Emily Dickinson: A Poet’s Grammar p. 120-121]
Miller interprets Dickinson’s use of That, in reference to the Poet, as suggesting the poet’s “lack of humanity”.
“The poet’s lack of humanity is further suggested by his peculair invulnerability in the last stanza: “a Fortune — / Exterior — to Time —” is glorious as a description of immortal poems but somewhat mechanical and materialistic as a description of a man. We are poor, capable of “wonder,” within “Time,” while He is alone, “Exterior” to our world, knowable only “by Contrast.” [p. 120]
“The poet/narrator who speaks in Dickinson’s poem considers herself a part of the admiring, ordinary crowd rather than separate from it. Her stance indicates that not all poets share “His” isolation from community.” [p. 121]
So, from Miller, we have a feminist critique based on a reading of He as a specifically gendered reference; and not, as Vendler asserts, a universalized He. It could be argued, in that respect, that Miller’s reading is potentially anachronistic (giving too much weight to the pronoun). Miller’s interpretation is also, arguably, based on reading the first two lines as one (which is not how Dickinson preserved the poem).
At any rate, there’s my 2 cents. Spend it how you will.
upinVermont | March 12 2024
PoemShape 