Emily Revisited

Emily Revisited

Abstract

The poem “After the Poetry Reading” posits an “Emily of today,” envisioning one way Dickinson might engage the variety of feminisms and femininities we know, were she alive in this century; the accompanying commentary works through some of the problems this raises.

After the Poetry Reading

If Emily Dickinson lived in the two-thousands
and let herself have sex appeal
she'd grow her hair wild and electric
down to her buttocks, you said. She'd wear
magenta tights, black ankle socks
and tiny pointed paddock boots.

Intrigued, I saw how Emily
would master Microsoft, how she
would fax the versicles that Higginson
advised her not to print to MSAPR and Thirteenth Moon.

She'd read aloud at benefits
address the weavers' guild
the garden club, the anarchists
Catholics for free choice
welfare moms, the Wouldbegoods
and the Temple Sinai sisterhood.

Thinking the same thing, silent
we see Emily flamboyant.
Her words for the centuries to come
are pithy, oxymoronic.
Her fly buzzes me all the way home.

"After the Poetry Reading" came in response to poet Marie Howe's whispers countering what seemed, I think, to both of us some tendentious remarks about Emily—Emily, the male poet's refuge whenever anyone asked him what women poets he read . . . Emily, long gone and safely dead. I don't think Emily today would be an activist, alas. I see her living in a remote cottage in Eastport, Maine or in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom with a big dog and possibly several feral cats she has tamed with time, sardines, and patience. An unknown admirer—woodsy, rugged, and just as shy as Emily—keeps her well supplied with split wood for her stove. Frequently at her back door she finds cornbread muffins or apple turnovers. I suspect she would be computerized, rather secretive about it, guarding her address from the general world, but involved via e-mail with several sister poets, which would relieve her of the considerable onus of having to go to the local post office to send and receive mail. She wouldn't need Higginson in today's world. She might very well be sending her poems to places like American Poetry Review and Thirteenth Moon. Chances are she might have assembled a chapbook by now. She has probably set aside her virginal whites in favor of jeans and lumberjack shirts, clothing in which she feels private, safe, and anonymous. I'd love to see her reading aloud at benefits but I don't think it would be in keeping with her hermetic character. It does seem quite possible that given the electronic ease in communication available, she might feel freer to express herself, knowing that she was in control of her work at all times. Thanks to her computer she need not suffer fools gladly; unsolicited letters and manuscripts would be starchily returned with a one–sentence note advising the sender of the etiquette of first making inquiry.

So much for my Emily of today.